Earthbound
by Metropolis-Rising
Summary: YAHF. Xander Harris dresses as a mild mannered reporter with unexpected results.
1. Chapter 1

"Earthbound"

All characters property of Mutant Enemy, and the WB. I don't own them I just put them in fun situations. Archived on Twisting the Hellmouth and YAHF.

Summary:Xander Harris dresses as a mild mannered reporter with unexpected results.

Xander sighed.

Having but a few dollars for a prop to go with his fatigues at home, he had settled on a toy rifle. Of course, after Willow and Buffy had fawned all over the gown Buffy was going with Xander felt a surge of frustration.

_A soldier, Xan? No wonder I can't get Buff-a-licious to notice me! Not when I wear my budget on my sleeve!_

Xander frowned at his ugly thoughts He knew better than to think of Buffy as supremely shallow like Cordy, but he was still frustrated.

"We're done Xan,"Buffy chirped, "bought your gun yet?"

"Mmm, why don't you lovely ladies go ahead, I'll catch up with you tonight before we go on Commandant Snyder's Bataan candy march."

Willow giggled. "Wow! Xander Harris using historical references as joke material?"

"Get!" Xander swatted playfully at his best friends. After the girls left Xander wandered back to the bargain bin and tossed the gun in, frustrated.

"Easy lad! No need to get churlish with the goods!" yelped a voice from Xander's shoulder.

"Cripes!" Xander wheezed, "Please feel free to never sneak up on me ever again!" The teen shuddered. Living on a hellmouth was making him overly jumpy.

"Sorry, not to alarm. Ethan is my name. Now that you know my name perhaps we can arrive to a mutually satisfactory agreement?"

Xander just quirked his eyebrows.

"Let's make a deal!" Ethan finished with a conspiratorial tone.

Xander smiled and let out a sigh. "Those girls who just left are my friends. We've gotta have costumes tonight and I was all set with soldier guy...but I just feel like I could do better."

Before Ethan retorted however Xander spied a laminated card that said "PRESS PASS" in bold type. Digging deeper the teen discovered a slightly worn pair of tortoiseshell horn rim glasses. Turning to Ethan he proudly held up his finds.

"I know it's a stretch, but if you've got a suit jacket to go with these on the cheap you'd make me a very happy customer."

Ethan gave Xander a slightly puzzled smile. "Considering the deal I gave your blond friend I'm positive we can come to an agreement. Can I inquire as to what exactly you've decided on though?"

Xander couldn't help but grin wider. "A rare bit of subtlety from my brain...just a mild mannered reported from a major metropolitan newspaper."

Elsewhere, above the physical realms, one particular being could sense a surge of Chaos from far below.

_Hmmm...Looks like someone is playing a game that I like._

Navigating through the walls of reality, the diminutive sprite came across the shade of Janus preparing for the festivities.

"Budge over McGurk, coming through!"

Janus sighed as only a god could. He hated it when this being called him that.

Chaos energy surged through Sunnydale in powerful wave as Ethan activated his spell.

Xander Harris' spirit recessed and Clark Kent came forth.

Staggering slightly as he fully possessed Xander the displaced reporter quickly recovered and began to try and make sense of his surroundings. People were screaming and running about but Clark was more shocked at how muted everything felt.

"Xander? Xander, it's me, Willow!"

Clark spun around to see a provocatively dressed red head running to him.

"Sorry miss- I don't know any Willow's...met an Ivy once..." Clark trailed off, confused as he tried sensing anything and able to only hear and see at what he remembered were pre-power levels. No thermal, no radio, no x-rays. What the hell was going on?

"Xander, quit playing!"

Clark had another shock as he realized that he could feel gravity once more. Becoming slightly alarmed he shrugged off the girl's insistence that he focus on her.

"Listen, miss, you should go find a safe place to hide. Something is going on and I need to find out what." Trying to pat Willow's shoulder in a reassuring way, Clark's jaw dropped when his hand passed right through the girl.

Willow looked almost as surprised as Clark when he looked over his glasses at her, the question in his eyes.

"Xander, listen, something crazy is going on. I was dressed as a ghost for Halloween a-and now I am...Oh hell."

Clark stared for a moment before going on. "Okay...what was it that I "dressed" as then?"

"Well, uh, you wouldn't say exactly. Just that you knew and that he was a reporter."

_This could get tricky._

Not knowing where or when he was exactly, Clark decided that in his current state feigning ignorance was probably for the best. He hated playing it up but he was going to have to act around this.

"You expect me to believe this?" Though he despised lying, he was shocked as he looked in a nearby window and was startled by the reflection of a face that wasn't his own.

Willow's response was unfortunately cut off by their serious need to flee from a creature that absurdly reminded Clark of the old "land shark" sketch.

Laughing as they ran down the street, Clark knew he should be more concerned but something in the air was invigorating his sense of reckless adventure.

Pausing a moment for Clark to scoop up an unconscious young lady in heavy dress that Willow said was her friend "Buffy".

"Well Willow, what do we do now?" Clark asked as he slung the girl over his shoulder.

"Oh boy. Um, listen, I know this will sound strange but I need you to trust me so I can get you two safe!" the teen pleaded as they ran from the possessed costume wearers.

"You'd be surprised what I'd find strange!" Clark yelled as they ran through backyards from the possessed costume wearers in Sunnydale.

Willow got the three of them to Buffy's house just before "Lady Buffy" awoke and loudly began voicing her disdain for the situation. As Clark secured the doors and windows he listened to the young noblewoman establish that she wasn't going to accept the strange situation and eventually he just tuned her out, caught up in his what to do about this situation.

He was wired on adrenaline but knew that wouldn't last. He couldn't fly, see, hear, and had forgotten how it had felt to sweat apparently.

He was thrilled.

Since he had turned 13 and his powers had started coming to the fore under Kansas skies, Clark had always been concerned that he would lose touch with what it was to be human. Tonight had served as a perfect refresher course. When this was all over (because if nothing else, Clark was an optimist) he couldn't wait to see Bruce and Diana's faces when he told them about all of this. Bruce, because his stoic friend was always quietly challenging Clark to never become complacent and disconnected. Diana, because she always understood his desire to "fit in" as best he could.

Willow made a quiet comment about Buffy's costume choice that brought Clark back from woolgathering just in time for him to dodge a scaly arm bursting through the small front door window. Taking quick action, the de-powered superhero grabbed the monstrous arm, slammed it to the opposite direction, and directed a pointed strike into the elbow. Clark grinned wryly as the arm vanished rather quickly with a yelp of pain and anger, into the night.

Dusting off his hands Clark turned to see Buffy looking curious and Willow looking downright suspicious at his quick actions.

"Ah," the reporter grinned sheepishly, "a friend of mine is a- uh- professional martial artist. He tries to teach me stuff from time to time."

Willow shook her head wondering about the stranger who had possessed her friend and crush.

Screams from outside caused Clark to bolt from the house to see if he could help, finding a statuesque brunette in a shredded cat suit running from some kind of hairy beast.

As the girl shrieked for "Xander" to help her he grabbed her and dragged her into the house, the whole time Clark felt an eerie sense of familiarity at her presence.

Clark listened as Willow tried to calm the girl down, only to be rebuffed with scathing wit.

"_She's like a slightly more mean spirited Lois_..." Clark thought to himself as he wrapped his suit jacket around Cordelia's shoulders as she went on about Party Town and her diminishing costume deposit.

"Thanks." the girl said, a little unsure of the kind act from the person wearing Xander Harris' face.

Clark grinned and winked. "_She may not look like Lois but she's almost as much fun to mess with." _

"Sit tight and I'll get some help!' Willow reassured the group before running through the wall's off towards the Library.

As Cordy, Clark and the frightened Lady Buffy continued to reinforce the doors and windows Clark saw a picture of Xander, Willow, and Buffy lying on the ground.

"Huh." Picking up the photo, Clark handed it to Buffy. "What say you, kind lady? Looks like the ghost girl wasn't bluffing..."

Buffy made a face at the image before her. "Surely a learned man such as you seem to be wouldn't indulge in this, this, phantasmagoria?"

Clark rolled his eyes. "Listen miss, culture and etiquette may be the law of the land where you are from, but as a "learned man" I need- am and being given- facts. Hopefully you'll see that blind ignorance won't suffice here."

Buffy only scowled more deeply and stamped her foot in a fit of childish pique.

Suddenly and tall young man in dark clothes entered from the kitchen. "Man am I glad to find you guys, it's total chaos out there."

"Who are you?" Buffy asked while Clark was blown away in silent shock at the face before him. The stranger in his midst looked almost exactly like Bruce Wayne.

"Bruce...?" Xander whispered in wonder. This world was pulling some fast ones it seemed.

Angel gave Xander a strange look and sensed something in the air for a moment before shaking it off.

"Okay, some one want to fill me in on why you two don't recognize me?"the ensouled vamp asked, perturbed.

Cordelia chose that exact moment to swoop in, explaining the situation and making introductions, all while throwing herself at the newcomer.

Then the lights went out.

Going into crisis mode Clark stepped into a leadership role once more. "Angel, take Cordelia and check the kitchen," taking Buffy gently by the arm and whispered gently, "You should stick with me milady, I'll not have any harm come to you." Clark couldn't help rolling his eyes at the tack he had to take to keep the flighty young woman calm but knew he made the right call when she complied calmly.

Seconds afterwards, sounds of a struggle came from the kitchen. Clark heard Cordelia say "Oh god, I think i went to school with him..." before Angel and Cordy emerged from the kitchen patting dust from their clothes, distasteful looks on their faces.

On the higher plane, Janus scowled. Buffy Summers was to have accompanied the ensouled vampire, ensuring a high level of Chaos that night. This "reporter" was interfering mightily. It had been more than four thousand years since Janus had smote someone but this mortal was trying his patience. Winding up to let a bolt of energy fry the displaced kryptonian, the god was stopped by his viewing partner.

"Whoa McGurk! Relax big fella! Zap that boy and you're blowing an amazing opportunity for both of us!"

Janus, intrigued, gave the imp leeway to explain.

"Everything that happens with the confines of the spell gives you power, right? Well what about the Chaos that would occur BECAUSE of the spell!"

Realization hit Janus in a flash at the importance of the imp's plan, a smile coming over both of his mouths.

"That's right you two faced pal 'o mine! You let that kid do his thing and with my help, we'll cause those upstart P.T.B.'s to go kaput! Look at him, because of this spell he's radiating lines of force to multiple different realities! We're talking Chaos of a kind that'll transcend that weak material plain! This is the kind of power that could make you a player again!" the purple suited imp finished with grand flourish that .

Janus smiled and sat back to take in the scene below. Perhaps it was time to look at playing the long game once more.

Shortly after the group at Buffy's house settled into waiting for Willow to return, said young ghost woman and Giles shattered the bust of Janus at Ethan's shop. Magic interrupted, the energy that had supercharged Sunnydale's night life began withdrawing almost instantly, leaving little effect on all of those who had been possessed by their costumes.

All but one, that is.

Xander Harris felt the moment the spell broke slow to a crawl. Clark Kent's essence was leaving him, as if it were draining away. Desperately, the youth grabbed at the memories of that other soul, so unlike the comic books and movies he'd grown up on. The life Xander had seen while Kal-El possessed the California teen had been beyond words. The "real" Clark Kent had shown Xander a mind full of memories that were bright and strong, a life that even in the quiet moments had surpassed Xander's expectations for what to expect from the world. A sharp witted, quiet friend who dressed as a bat. A radiant Amazon princess who had been a wonderful chess partner. A childhood full of the joy of exploration and a farm full of laughter. A beautiful redhead who had been his best friend and more. A caustic, brilliant brunette who had challenged him as a reporter. The clouds between his feet. God's the clouds rushing past, the wind and sun on his face as he hurtled through the air...

Xander grabbed at the memories as best he could, trying to make all the faces stay in his heart. At the last second, the last bit of magic draining out his system, Xander could have sworn that he saw Clark's face in his mind, winking conspiratorially at the teen. Later on, Xander would have realized that on the Hellmouth, he should have learned to expect an interesting life.

After Willow had called and relayed that everything was settling down and that she'd be heading home, Xander sat in the Summers living room, dealing with the events of what had happened. He felt different now, in a way that he knew would take a while to understand.

"Y'okay Xan?" Buffy asked, seeing the slightly sad look on her best guy friend's face.

Xander shook off the look on his face. "Yeah Buff, just a lot to take in, y'know?"

"Tell me about it!" Buffy said with a smile before she spat out a series of what sounded like self depreciating comments in classical French.

Angel and Xander looked at each a burst out laughing before Buffy had realized what had happened and began to mutter darkly under her breath.

"Well, in any case Xander, if you need to talk about anything, I'll be here. Okay?"

Xander smiled and gave the Slayer a short hug and tossed a brief nod to Angel as both men realized that their earlier moment of shared humor had been a breach in their "feud". Xander still marveled over Angel's resemblance to Bruce Wayne and wondered what it all meant. Leaving the couple at Casa de Summers, Xander walked home, his head full of clouds and half remembered glories.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

"Earthbound"

All characters property of Mutant Enemy, and the WB and any other corporate masters. I don't own them I just put them in fun situations. Archived on Twisting the Hellmouth and YAHF. Xander Harris dresses as a mild mannered reporter with unexpected results.

A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed this! Kind of shocked me to be honest. I'll try to maintain the integrity that you all have hoped for.

Early on the morning of November first, 1998 , just as the night began to flee the coming sunrise in earnest, Xander Harris awoke. Getting out of bed, Xander yawned and began a stretch routine while going over his checklist for the day.

_Breakfast with Bruce and Diana in Gotham, getting his run in around Metropolis Gardens, Finish that article on cargo cults for "Harpers", see if Perry had any-_

With a start Xander found himself very awake and extremely amused as he realized that he'd been going through Clark's checklist. With a rueful shrug and no small surprise that he was up with the sun, Xander decided to try modifying his possessor's daily schedule to fit his own.

Packing a his bag for school and throwing on some running clothes, Xander looked at what he knew he was capable of and augmented his non-existent morning schedule with Clark's. He'd have to watch for over taxing himself, it's not like he had the strength of a demi god.

Managing to avoid Tony Harris' morning rituals, Xander slipped from his house with a brisk warm up pace to the school track. In the course of fifteen minutes travel, the teen had come to some amusing conclusions.

Clark was a real man, with real problems. Heat vision didn't exactly combat loneliness, and superhero or not, everyone has to pay bills. Even with all of that, there was more that Xander could be doing to get on a better path. Jesse's death and Buffy's arrival had derailed him, turned him into a reactionary and he knew that if he ever wanted to feel like he was more than a sidekick on a teen drama(one that was still in it's early episodes, he bet) he'd have to try and plan further ahead. Xander knew that Clark wasn't a panacea for his woes, but comparing notes against a level headed, accomplished 28 year old was a good start as to the moves he could make. If the Hellmouth was going to stuff all of these memories and skills in his head, he could at least use them as guide to his life.

Arriving at the school track, Xander could see that hitting the books and laying off the twinkies every day might have to be on the junket. He wondered if all of this maturity was going to screw with him in other ways as well. Hell, he might even be able to stop pretending that Willow wasn't an attractive young woman who was rapidly approaching hottie levels.

_Okay, let's not just crazy yank the band-aid of denial off of life. _The teen thought to himself.

Laughing loudly, Xander started some laps, soaking up the abundant Southern California sunshine.

After making an impromptu stop at Ethan's costume shop and finding it empty, Rupert Giles sat at his desk trying to enjoy a mug of tea and a copy of the Guardian's international edition. Ethan's return into his life had stirred up ugly thoughts and he hoped that a return to regularity and schedule would help calm him down. Despite the cultural canyon that "Ripper" Giles and America stood on opposite sides of, Giles had become rather fond of California and would have no truck with a former mate buggering about in his new home.

Taking controlled deep breaths Giles heard someone sitting down to the table out in the main library. Checking his watch and seeing that classes were still an hour away Giles found himself shocked by the sight of Xander busying himself with fruit and and a notebook.

"Xander? What a-er-surprise. Is there something going on?"

Xander somberly regarded the librarian. "Yes Giles, I'm afraid there is." Xander dramatically reached into his book bag. "Breakfast." With a grin, Xander tossed an orange to Giles. "Homework too, but I think I should probably not use a watcher diary as research materials for a report on Death of a Salesman."

Giles quirked a smile and left the boy to his work.

Getting back to his paper, Giles reflected that he had never seen Xander actually look like he was enjoying do his homework. Perhaps last night was even more strange than previously thought.

_one week later_

After the disastrous visit by Billy "Ford" Fordham had left everyone floored by the former friend's grave mistake , Xander and Willow were having a slightly glum lunch at school.

"Ugh, I can't believe that he thought being a vampire would be cool," Willow squeaked angrily, "what did he think? Drinking blood while killing innocent people will be great!"

Xander furrowed his brow, lost in memory. Ford has bothered him too, partly because of Buffy's connection with him, but much more so that anyone would sacrifice people just to get ahead. Then after rifling through Clark's memories of Lex Luthor, Xander sadly realized that to some, power was worth whatever price. The criminal businessman had put many innocent lives in danger in the short time that Clark had been Superman, and every situation had almost always been for a minute measure of control over the city.

Xander noticed that Willow had quit ranting and guiltily came out of his thoughts to a questioning look on his increasingly attractive best friends face.

"Uh, sorry Wills," Xander drawled lamely searching for an excuse, "I was just thinking of all the kids we saved at the club, hoping that they won't get back into that creepo stuff."

Willow looked pensively at Xander, biting her lip. She had seen him in the library a lot lately. More than just Slayer stuff, she had seen him chatting to Giles about books, taking notes from various things and flirting with Willow and Buffy, which wasn't too weird, except for the fact that Xander was flirting with Willow at all. It just wasn't done as far as she could tell and his frequent periods of deep thought were starting to draw her attention as well.

Xander recognized that Willow was trying to work up to asking him something, but he sighed in relief as the bell rang harshly in the sunny courtyard. Grabbing his books and practically running to class Xander was stopped by Willow's gentle hand on his arm.

"Xander...I think we should talk."

"About?" Xander tried for casual. He failed.

"You've been acting different and-"

"Ooh, sorry Will, I gotta run. But we'll talk later, okay?" Completely forgetting himself, Xander pulled Willow into a brief hug and kissed her on the forehead.

As he ran to class, thinking of new excuses not to discuss his attitude change, he never even saw the look of total shock and furious blush on Willow's face at the totally unexpected kiss.

_a few days later_

Swimming laps after the swim team were done with practice, Xander allowed himself to forget about his new way of looking at things, forget about his crappy parents, about his friends, basically he forgot about Sunnydale altogether. When he slipped into the placid water after running (he had begun running twice a day now, anything to avoid home) everything tended to become less important.

It generally did when it was the closest to flying he figured he'd ever get.

Gliding underneath the water, Xander swooped and flowed, feeling serene.

The sense of his and Clark's memories merging never felt as strong as when he was swimming. He'd gotten close by writing, and despite that not being quite the same, Xander had begun to enjoy the writing a great deal. Granted he was drawing off the technical expertise of a man who had won a Hearst Award in College, a National Journalism Award for international human rights reporting, and had been a Pulitzer finalist prior to the time Xander had been possessed by Clark. It wasn't like Xander wasn't playing with a bit of loaded deck, the teen mused wryly as he entered into his final set of laps. That was a curiosity to the teen as well, why had he retained so much of Clark? Everyone else's costume memories seemed to have faded within days, heck, even Willow had quit curiously poking at walls by November third. Xander though...he could feel Clark in there.

Well, "in there" was an improper way of describing it. Xander simply remembered Clark's life vividly, almost as if he had been there. Or seen it all first person, at least. He'd started keeping a journal, noting what he could draw up offhand, of the Kansas, then Metropolis, residents life. He had been going through all of Jesse's comics, reading all of the Superman and DC universe ones, trying to see if any were close to the "real" thing. The Clark who had been in Xander's body had only been suiting up for three years at the time of possession, and while he was very iconic and had been credited with setting off what was referred to as the "Modern Age" of superheros, he was hardly a legend.

The suit had been the biggest difference that Xander had noted. Clark's suit had been created by the fortress computers, designed by Clark and Martha over the course of a month. Johnathan had encouraged his adopted son to eschew the idea of a mask, agreeing with Clark that people could trust an uncovered face. They had all been terrified of people recognizing Clark, but when he had passionately argued that security or no, the world need him, his parents had been so proud and knew that he was right.

Xander had been impressed with the ingenuity of the suits triggering mechanism after he had racked his brain understanding Kryptonian technology. Clark had two rectangular patches of a clear nano-crystal weave that were about twelve microns thick, which he wore across his lower stomach and back. When he applied a few thousand tons of force to both pads simultaneously, the weave would activate and convert whatever clothes Clark was wearing into his uniform.

As Xander hit the locker room to clean up, he grinned at the memory of the first time he'd activated the weave in his parents kitchen. The sensation of his clothes reforming had been almost chilly, reminiscent of interfacing with the Fortress the first time. While Clark hadn't "felt" cold in years, the sensation was like rivulets of cool water rushing over his skin. The dark blues with the gold on red "S-shield" were much different from pop culture, and the belt and underwear on the outside were gone as well. Xander remembered the collar on the suit as well, which hadn't been in any drawings that he'd seen in his universe. Well, yet at least. The gasp from his parents had been so rewarding, the awe in their faces at their Clark transformed...

A week already and Xander barely noticed when he interchanged when he thought of Clark as himself or vice-versa. What's more, the teen probably wouldn't have cared had anyone been able to point it out.

Xander headed to the library to catch the last 20 minutes of Buffy's training session. The girls and he were going to the Bronze for some downtime after they finished their homework and he wanted to get a head start on his so he could get some writing down while Buffy and Willow got ready. Plus watching Buffy beat up Giles while wearing tight workout clothes was always good imagery.

Buffy watched Xander dancing at the Bronze that night with Willow. Her best guy friend was currently making Willow blush and other girls were giving him appreciative glances as the teen played out on the dance floor.

It was beginning to bug her.

While Buffy had pretty firmly ignored Xander for awhile now, and she frowned guiltily as she remembered using him badly when she had gotten back after last summer, the Slayer still had a strange proprietary interest in Xander. He belonged to her and Willow, bellowed the alpha Slayer in her, and she'd be damned if she could understand her Xander shaped friend as of late.

She'd seen him at her training sessions over the past week and a half and Buffy felt as if he was much more...observant? Attentive? He'd been taking notes, sometimes when Giles spoke, other times from textbooks, and other times just from various books that came from parts of the library she didn't think she and Xander had ever known existed. She'd caught him wearing his glasses from Halloween a few days back, when she called him on it, he just laughed it off and said that they helped him focus his chi.

Whatever.

Buffy had heard the cheerleaders starting to talk about "Dorkwad Harris" in a more favorable light as well, which had raised her hackles. The two short weeks of running and swimming she found out that he'd been doing had started to tone the boy nicely...Buffy's mind started to wander as she remembered yesterday when he was changing from his school clothes into his workout clothes in Giles' office, and hadn't seen her see him. Xander was already pretty okay before working out, the swimming and running could only help and was starting to show a well built, un-bulgy, kind of muscled body that Buffy had always liked. Plus he'd been talking about getting into rope yoga and that just confused the hell out the little blond. Since when did he do yoga? She could only imagine what that would do for his butt...

Okay, she had to stop thinking about him like that. She loved Angel! She did too, and she'd seen Angel without his shirt on recently and his pale cool flesh had almost glowed in the dim light of his little apartment...

Let's just leave Buffy there, shall we?

_Two and a half weeks later, Thanksgiving night, Sunnydale_

Angel prowled the streets of Sunnydale, covering for Buffy while she enjoyed Dinner with her Mom. He was glad that he had the opportunity for a solo patrol, he still felt restless from the whole experience with Eyghon.

Xander had caught the reference to the demon inhabiting the nearest unconscious body minutes after the the briefly possessed Jenny Calender had been escorted from the school by Giles Willow had combined that with the realization that a vampire body was the dead body half of the criteria that Eyghon needed to inhabit something and the group had managed to form a plan that had saved Giles and Jenny a lot of grief.

Of course the immediate physical exhaustion from Eyghon had been a tea party compared to what Spike and Dru had subjected the ensouled vampire to a week later. The whole process combined with the shock of Kendra's existence as another Slayer had really put one over on the Slayer and her friends, Angel was grateful for the holiday so as they could all get some rest.

Angel had noticed that a change had come over the group lately, he felt as if he were missing something, but every time he thought he might pin down the elusive feeling, it shot off into the dark once more. Intuition wanted to point at Xander, but Angel resisted that line of thought. Yes, the boy seemed more focused lately, Angel had noticed that Xander's humor tempered with bitterness had started to fade over the past month. Quietly, it had been replaced by a calm kind of humor, full of dry wit combined with some more of the standard lascivious jokes teenagers are capable of. The boy definitely had a lot going on behind his glasses, that was for sure.

Another thing Angel noticed was the way the air changed whenever the teen came into the room. It was hard to describe, but Angel knew he recognized it somehow, and it bothered him that it was just out of reach.

Deep in thought, Angel moved to the rooftops as he entered the downtown area, only to see a pack of vampires moving north towards the Serene Heart Cemetery, creeping stealthily with dark purpose.

Moving swiftly through the cooler than average night, Angel beat the pack to the cemetery, only to find a scuffle in progress.

Four vamp had already attacked a figure, the fight looking like a brutal dance. Angel watched for an opening, trying to rescue the young man before the reinforcements arrived but was getting caught up in the spectacle. One vamp exploded into a cloud of dust as a whittled axe handle stake punched through the undead chest, the tactless fighter making up where he lacked with a violent temper.

Angel finally dove in after an agonizing few seconds and managed to dust another vamp while kicking a third into the "victims" stake. As the fourth vampire pulled back and joined the newly arrived pack of six, both parties regrouped. Angel took a moment to get a better look at his fighting partner and felt his dinner of pig's blood run cold as he realized that Buffy was going to kill him for letting Xander get into this mess.

"Well, well boys, looks like we'll be giving thanks tonight. Who wants to say grace?" a vamp dressed in Biking leathers drawled at the sight of a tired Xander.

"Careful Leo, the kids got a friend," the remaining member of the first group called out nervously.

Leo sneered. "What? The pretty boy? Nah, I heard that his fangs got pulled a long time ago."

Xander and Angel smirked at each other, Xander grimacing at the stitch in his side.

"Well Angel, looks like I'm getting some turkeys tonight after all," the teen joked while coughing from the beating he'd been taking, Angel couldn't smell any blood though so he counted their blessings.

"Stay close to me Xander, I'm not going to have Willow and Buffy tie me to a picture window just because I let you get dead."

"Aww, but the girls look so good in black...don't tell me you haven't pictured it before." Xander mused just as he impulsively dove in to the two vamps on the right of the group.

Angel rolled his eyes. Youth really was wasted on the young.

The fight reached a fever pitch within seconds. Angel kept getting flashes of Xander but he was dealing with four relatively experienced vamps of his own. Blocking a telegraphed punch got Angel a rib cracking knee to the side, which he repaid by snapping the offenders neck so hard that the vamp dusted on the heads first three-sixty. Kicking at "Leo's" knee resulted in a satisfying snap which was followed by some short agonized screams, as Angel wasted no time staking the vampire biker.

When Angel spun around to find where Xander was his face fell in horror.

Xander Harris was having a bad night.

His parents were hosting a traditional family thanksgiving which meant a lot of family classics. Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Jose, Bud Light...ugh. The memories of each awful year after year screaming matches had done little to make tonights disaster any better. By 7:30 Tony and Jessica had gone through a case and were opening up the hard stuff, much to Uncle Rory's delight. By 8:30 Xander had fled the house, shame and anger at his parents awful accusations ringing in Xander's ears. Clark's memories hadn't helped much, images of Clark and his parents joining up with the Ross family at the Lang household where the three families would laugh and spin wild tales of past holidays. "Thanksgiving was for friends and neighbors," Pa had always said. Xander could only see those days as the best days of a life he'd never lived and in the din of his own home, it had been a knife in his heart. On top of that, Xander had started to give up his dreams of somehow following in his possessors footsteps, his heart aching at the thought of never getting to be free of gravity ever again.

He knew that being out late was asking for a fight, but no matter the change brought on by Halloween, Xander was still a boy who'd suffered 16 years of various abuses and no one who's been through such things can be expected to control their anger logically when dealing with raging hormones.

He'd seen a vamp near the north gate of the Cemetery and had trailed it through the graveyard until one accidentally turned into four. After one of them screamed into a walkie-talkie for the rest of his friends, Xander knew the night had gone from bad to infinitely worse. Angel showing up had been an onyx ray of sunshine though. While Xander was still wrestling with his "Vampires can be people" issues, Angel's more than passing similarity to Bruce Wayne(especially when brooding) always gave Xander a smile.

Clark's memories revealed that early on in Clark and Bruce working together, there had been an incident with a dimensional tear known as The Bleed with a "mirror darkly" group of superhumans who called themselves the Authority. At first Superman and Batman had been baffled by how well Apollo and The Midnighter worked together, until the "special"nature of their relationship had been revealed. The four had laughed hard over some misconceptions and though Bruce and Clark **definitely **didn't feel the same way, they resolved that a trust based friendship could help with their synchronization as a fighting team.

Years later, Diana would still tease the two of them about their "hidden love" and lamented that she couldn't get between them, that was of course until Bruce showed her his Bat cave. Clark had firmly requested no details from either, but had been happy that the strange on again, off again, relationship made his friends happy.

But all of this happy bullshit was kind of moot as Xander had just gone two minutes into round two before two vamps clamped down on his shoulders with their fangs.

Angel's demon side began howling like an air raid siren when the scent of Xander's blood filled the air. Angel kept himself in check, but finally realized why the air changed when Xander was around. The boy smelled like he had Summer in his veins. The four remaining vampires had gone berserk as the smell of sunlight and fresh clean air filled their senses. Sunlight far more pure than they ever remembered before they began their endless night, to be sure. Angel swayed weakly before coming to his senses and scrambled towards Xander as the two leeches convulsed in an orgiastic fit of ecstasy at the taste of the teens blood. The two remaining vamps actually attacked their brethren and _fed off of their friends_ their blood lust was so great. Angel helped Xander to his feet as they both watched the bizarre sight of four vampires simultaneously blissing out and fighting each other like rabid dogs.

Then things got really weird.

The vamps were moaning in joy, when without warning, they all began screaming horribly. Angel could see their fangs blacken and crumble and their eyes started to glow from within.

Xander couldn't believe his eyes when the screaming vamps just exploded into nothing after drinking his blood. Much more than a staking, there was no discernible point of dusting, they were just smoking from the mouth, then they were gone, almost no ashes or dust to be seen on the wind.

Darkness curled at the edges of his vision and the last thing he heard before passing out from blood loss was Angel's almost scared voice whisper.

"What are you?"

TBC...

_A/N 2: Thanks for reading, this chapter was really hard for some reason. I had to rewrite it twice and it was only after I finished an outline for this first arc that I found my excitement again. I figure that this first arc will be 7 or 8 chapters of similar length, just for a heads up. I'm hoping to update at least bi-weekly, if not more. Thanks for stopping by. For my friends, sorry about some of the formatting. I'm trying as best as can, sorry if things look crowded.  
_


	3. Chapter 3

"Earthbound"

All characters property of Mutant Enemy, and the WB and any other corporate masters. I don't own them I just put them in fun situations. Archived on Twisting the Hellmouth and YAHF. Xander Harris dresses as a mild mannered reporter with unexpected results.

A/N: Whew! Thanks so much for everything. Keep up the feedback guys, it really helps me stay on target! This chapter is a little late due to my computer almost burning to slag and work issues, but I got all of that fixed. Some of you can see which way the wind is blowing, I can only hope that I can retain everyone's interest! This chapter kind of got away from me a bit, exposition overload in someways. You've been warned.

_Clark Kent's apartment, 2010(Local dimension time) , Earth 3-18_

"So you're saying I look like a vampire?"

Clark rolled his eyes, Bruce could be such a pain when he wanted to be.

"No, I'm just saying that wherever I was, this Angel guy looked like you and he was a vampire."

Diana came from the kitchen, eating what was left of the pizza that the three friends had ordered.

"You know Bruce, the whole thing does sound like he's calling you a blood sucking fiend..."

Clark just threw a magazine at the Amazon princess. "Oh be quiet, your highness. Or I'll be forced to tell Bruce all of stuff that Xander knew about his world's version of you."

"What? The whole bondage thing? Pff. Like you scare me. He'd probably like it," the raven haired beauty intoned archly.

Bruce, not to be outdone, smoothly whispered into Diana's ear, knowing that Clark would hear, "Maybe you just want me to," using his sultry playboy persona, "also, you have sauce on your chin."

Diana's sun bronzed skin flushed and she swatted at Bruce and wiped her face, in that order. All three of the friends laughed and Clark spared a moment for Xander Harris, hoping the boy was well.

The Kryptonian assumed that since he'd gotten a fair amount of Xander's memories and knowledge he figured that Xander must have retained something from Clark as well. He wished that he knew how the boy was doing.

Then Clark tried yet again to combat the intense craving for twinkies the teen had also left in Clark's mind.

_Elsewhere_

Xander opened his eyes to a room filled with cool silver light. He had awakened in that way that happens so rarely, one moment asleep, the next awake. As he studied the room, Xander realized that it was _his_ room.

The astronomy books on the desk, the dark blue curtains, even the bed frame that had broken so many times was still here. Xander rolled out of bed and found an old ultramarine blue flannel that he hadn't seen in years. Shrugging on the loved shirt and some jeans he set about rediscovering "his" room.

One wall had been covered with deep field star pictures and star charts as well as ancient ruins. Machu Pichu, Phu Phek, Kunya Urgench...plenty more that Xander remembered seeing through Clark's memories.

Clark always did have a penchant for ancient civilizations.

Xander perused bookcase, his mind whirling with the sagging shelves contents. Each of the the shelves was layered and stuffed with different genres: The bottom shelf held all of the textbooks, the next one up was full of foreign language course books. The higher shelves got into some theoretical stuff before going into play scripts, sci-fi and fantasy.

Xander thumbed through a well read copy of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and smiled at the fond memories it brought back of how he and Pete had made Lana laugh with it.

Shaking off the nostalgia, Xander heard noises in the kitchen below and cautiously made his way to the stairs. The farmhouse looked and smelled exactly the same, but the strange fog out every window made Xander curious. He heard some light conversation in the kitchen and dared to hope that all of this was real, that his parents would be in that kitchen making breakfast, his dad ready to give him a hard time for sleeping so late.

Turning the corner of the stairwell he didn't even realize that he'd been holding his breath.

Unfortunately for Xander, the Kent home was not housing his parents (or Clark's parents, as it were) but instead a strange couple of characters. An elderly man stood watch over the stove, mixing and frying various dishes, while a girl slightly younger than Xander sat at the dining table.

The man had a certain vitality in his face, from Xander's vantage, and was clothed in soft silvery linen trousers and collared shirt.

The girl was another thing altogether. Elfin in face, she had silver white hair that flowed down her back. She was wearing a deep purple sweater and a bright green miniskirt, finished off with knee high athletic socks and purple canvas high tops.

Xander was still deciding how to proceed when that girl saw him. Xander had seen some interesting stuff on the Hellmouth, but this girls eyes were up there. For all purposes they were fairly normal, but the irises were glowing bright green. Somehow, despite this oddity, the eyes still conveyed a sense of whimsy, possibly a touch of insanity from Xander's view point.

"Well McGurk, are you going to hide there all day, or are you going to have some breakfast," the teen chirped mischievously.

The man at the stove turned and a huge smile burst forth from his face when he saw Xander.

"Come in, come in," The man pulled himself away from the stove and ushered Xander to the table that felt so very much like home. "What will it be my boy? Pancakes? Porridge? Perhaps some pears?"

Xander eyed the two with some trepidation, "Uh, alliteration aside," the girl smirked at Xander's joke, "I guess I'd like an explanation."

"Of course, of course, where are my manners," the man smacked his own forehead and sighed mournfully, "you know, you avoid interacting with mortals for a few thousand years and it's like learning to ride a bike all over again!"

The ethereal girl just shook her head with the disdain that all youth has for the slightly bumbling and laughed. "Sorry Xander, allow me so he can get back to making **food**," the girl stressed.

The old man clucked humorously and got back to making various delicious smelling dishes. " Don't mind her, son. She just got here and apparently has been having a hard month..."

The girl hissed and threw some silverware at the man before Xander cleared his throat pointedly.

"Oh right, sorry," the girl blushed at getting off track. "The old fuddy-"

"Hey!"

"-duddy is Janus."

From the stove Xander heard some laughter, "Pardon my companion, Xander, this is Mxyzp-"

"Don't say it old man," the girl warned before chomping into an apple from the center of the table.

"Sorry dear, I mean to say, _Mxyia_"

Xander suddenly felt a chill run through him. Suddenly this trip down memory lane started to seem like a very dangerous place.

"Hold the phone," Xander leapt to his feet, backing up against the nearest wall, "you mean to tell me that you're Janus, as in the god," the suddenly less kind(in Xander's eyes) old man smiled, "and you're Mxyzpt-"

"Mxyia," the girl interjected sternly.

Xander just ran his hand through his hair. This could be a long day.

"Xander, relax," Janus said warmly. "Have a seat lad. Now seriously, pancakes or waffles?'

"Uhh, pancakes. Blueberry if Mom- I mean Martha has any in the fridge." Xander sat down cautiously, expecting for a tiger to maul him just on principle.

Janus started humming a cheerful song that men forgot at least 1,500 years ago and searched the refrigerator while Mxyia giggled behind her hand at Xander's unease.

"Seriously Xander, we aren't going to hurt you. Point of fact is that we're giving you a time out before things start to get really weird."

"More weird than hanging out in my- I mean Clark Kent's- childhood home with two beings of incredible power and dubious morality? Please, enlighten me."

Janus chuckled at the stove as he mixed blueberries into the batter. "Mxyia, why don't we wait until after breakfast dear."

The silver haired teen shook her head before Xander's curiosity got the best of him.

"What's the deal Mxyz-, sorry, Mxyia? I thought you were supposed to be a little man or something, y'know, on top of being fictional above all else."

"Pff, fiction. Anybody can be fiction, Xander. It takes someone who is as talented as myself to be **real**." Mxyia dismissively waved, "As for the girl thing...what can I say? A plan over on Earth 56 or CW or something went kablooie in my face."

Xander gave Mxyia a look that brooked no stone left unturned.

"Oh fine," she pouted "I turned all of the Superman gang into teen aged female versions of themselves. Can I just say, Claire Kent can be a real bitch."

Xander burst out laughing at Mxyia's pout. Somehow he'd never thought that the imp could seem so...human. Not after reading as many comics as he had.

"No seriously! She's a total hair puller! And Ginny Olsen? I think she's kinda gay."

Xander's eyebrows shot upwards at the slur.

"No! Not in a bad way, I mean, she was totally hitting on me and stuff! Lois Lane had to remind Ginny that I was the quote- un-quote bad guy."

Xander smirked and took notice of Janus trying to hold in his own laughter.

"Well what about Lex Luthor?"

"Alexandria?" Mxyia frowned, "You know, it didn't really phase her that much. I can only assume what that means about Lex in that world..."

Xander shook his head, his mind going over all of the times that the Clark he had been had butted heads with Lex. In that universe, Lex had been almost asexual, all of his time spent pushing Lexcorp further and further, trying to amass power for his various dark deeds. Suddenly an uncomfortable thought danced through his mind.

"Hey, uh, Mxyia? That wouldn't be the same universe as the one I, uh..."

"Oh no way! No that universe is like this weird total soap opera all the time. Sometimes you can almost see the boom dropping into your line of sight. And it seems to be stuck in the eighties too...in any case, they got me to transform myself as well and I guess I just kind of like it."

Xander eyed the "girl" in front of him with no small curiosity. Things were just going to keep getting more bizarre in his life, it seemed.

Janus deposited plates at the table with an excited flourish.

"Breakfast is served!"

The three ate in a cautious silence, Xander relishing the tastes of the Kent kitchen as they synced with his borrowed memories. He would occasionally try and look out through the windows through the impenetrable silver fog, but he could never make out the comforting shapes of the barn or Kent orchard.

Xander new that "his" Clark had never run into Mxy, but it seemed that the imp or sprite had a vested interest in Kal-El of Krypton, no matter the reality. But as Xander had only been said kryptonian for a few hours he couldn't understand why he was here now.

"Because McGurk, you're Xander Harris, but you're _him_ as well- thanks to Halloween and Ethan Rayne."

Xander jumped in shock as he helped Janus clean up. He peered at the girl, slight fear on his face before she blew an errant strand of hair from her eyes.

"Yes, I read your mind, silly. First of all you're unconscious and Janus and I are in _your_ head, second of all, I'm a tenth level intellect and it's not hard to trace out your thoughts."

"Xander," Janus started, "Mxyia and I have come to you because you've just had an experience which is going to set your destiny in motion and I decided that as your benefactor, you could use a slight Deus Ex Machina before things got ahead of you."

Xander pursed his lips before motioning for the god to continue. While the unchanged Xander Harris would have been screaming for answers, Xander...Kent, for lack of a better term was exercising caution.

'The fact is Xander, you used to not have a destiny. My disciples spell however forged an inordinate level of Chaos to the earth realms that you exist in and you have started to sway events away from the ineffectual and nebulous PTB's plan."

Xander thought hard before answering, "So you two have essentially hijacked me to, what? Cause entertainment? Stir things up? Why?"

"Because your free will caused you to pick a costume that would change everything," Mxyia stated plainly, "You created a chain of events with your choice that has obliterated the scales of balance."

Xander paled and sat roughly. How could he have been so stupid? He was responsible for-"

"Before you get all worried about this son, I think you should see something." Janus gently touched Xander's head with his hand and Xander was flooded with what would have been. He saw each moment separately but as part of a huge tapestry that was full of pain. Seconds afterwards he lost many of the images of the future that was to be but the present he would have been living made his heart hurt.

Xander had seen a version of Career Day where instead of talking to the EIC of the Sunnydale Gazette about an internship, he had been a bumbling frustrated wreck who had been snidely shot down by Principal Snyder and Cordelia as little more than a waste of space. He had seen Willow get closer to Oz (which had started happening anyways) but in a way that Xander saw as more painful somehow. But the images that disturbed him the most, he couldn't not comment on.

"So I was supposed to make out with Cordelia Chase?"

The two higher beings burst out laughing at the boy's disbelief.

"You would eventually figure into making her take a path that would be...painful for many," Janus stated. "As of now, her path is being re-tooled. Probably to the life she would have led had a 'Power That Was' not taken an interest in young Miss Chase."

"Still...kissing her is weird. Why anyone thought that she and I...yeeuch. She seemed odd in the basement during the bug guy thing, but I wasn't getting that kind of vibe from her."

Mxyia sighed wistfully, "You two did make a kind of cute couple though...especially if you would have gone with her when you really start to change..."

"Okay what is that riff? You keep referring to a change or things changing? How is having Clark's memories going to change me? It's not like I'm going to grow four inches and start shooting lasers from my eyes."

Janus and Mxyia shuffled awkwardly before Xander's jaw dropped. "Why has no one corrected me?"

Mxyia stepped forward and with a wave one wall of the "Kent kitchen" became a smooth surface where images began to appear.

Without words Xander watched as images of Halloween flowed over the screen. He remembered the feeling of emptiness as Clark went away after the spell broke but say what Janus and Mxyia were trying to tell him. Xander saw that by becoming Clark Kent for the short time in the dimension full of magic created an unexpected side effect.

Clark Kent was raised on Earth but he was a Kryptonian at the end of the day. Whether or not he had processed any radiation of a yellow star, his DNA was different. Xander had been a depowered Kryptonian, yes, but when Clark left he left behind his exact bio chemistry is Xander's body, thanks to the magic and Kryptonian weakness to the mysterious force.

Xander remembered what he'd been doing before waking up in the farmhouse. He remembered the Vampires, Thanksgiving, all of it. He knew now why they had reacted the way they did and he remembered Angel's question.

_What are you?_

Xander Harris, of Sunnydale California, was the only Kryptonian in his dimension.

Halloween had turned him into an alien.

Looking at Janus and Mxyia, Xander could think of only one thing to say.

"Cool."

_A/N 2- Thanks for reading, I've tried re-doing this chapter, scrapping it, bringing it back, but I still like it even if it breaks the flow a little. It's all part of how I see this Alternate Universe I'm trying to build and I hope y'all will stick with me. I wanted to get this out, so the next chapter will be back in the "real" world, I promise. Some of my line breaks are still funny here on please tell me if it's a problem in reading, thanks!  
_


	4. Chapter 4

"Earthbound"

All characters property of Mutant Enemy, and the WB and any other corporate masters. I don't own them I just put them in fun situations. Archived on Twisting the Hellmouth and YAHF. Xander Harris dresses as a mild mannered reporter with unexpected results.

Xander groaned as he struggled back to consciousness. Briefly, he wished that the dream world he'd just been ejected from hadn't been so comfy when he woke up in the strange limbo version of the Kent house his Patron Deity had created for him.

Before opening his eyes, Xander could sense that he wasn't in his own bed...and he wasn't alone either.

"You can stop pretending Xander, I know you woke up."

Damn. That was definitely Angel. Which meant that Xander must have been in worse shape that he thought. As the teen opened his eyes, he took stock of the situation he had gotten himself into because of his temper.

He was currently on a bed in Angel's basement apartment, shirt off, with his shoulder wounds dressed, and one ensouled vampire sitting in a chair across the room with a sword across his knees.

All in all, way less bad than being bound to a table with Lex Luthor's scientists pointing an array of kryptonite based lasers at the "S" shield.

"So we greet vampire wound victims with cold steel now? What about a nice cup of tea?"

Angel snorted, "Even if I'm not sure that you're Xander Harris, you certainly sound like him."

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad. How is it that you think that I'm not me?"

Angel took a moment and peered at Xander. "Considering that you haven't been trying to actively piss me off since Halloween, and that I watched some vampires explode after drinking your blood not 5 hours ago, I'd really love to hear the argument you've got prepared."

Xander was glad to hear that it'd only been a few hours considering that he'd been fed four different meals by Janus and Mxyia in his dream. There had been lots of discussion about Xander's new status and what it meant for his friends. All in all, he hadn't gotten an exact answer as to what would happen to his body now that he was a Kryptonian, but they'd gone over the possibilities and the fact that while he was dreaming, he definitely wasn't not having a visit by two of the most powerful beings that he was apt to meet anytime soon.

Taking a breath, Xander realized that whether he liked it or not, he was going to need some help.

"Angel, I dressed up as Clark Kent for Halloween."

Let's see how quick the vampire was.

To Xander's surprise, something he had never seen started to occur. Angel started to smile. No, Angel started to laugh.

"That's it? You dressed up as Superman for Halloween?" With a movement Xander barely saw, Angel was across the room and holding the sword at Xander's neck, all levity gone. "I've heard some bad excuses from demons, but if you think-"

"Yes I do think, unlike yourself. If you would _listen _to me, I said Clark Kent, Deadboy." Having a sword up against his neck had brought out the angry in Xander, but he was using all of his Clarkness to keep his inner teen in check. That didn't mean that he wouldn't call names.

Confusion painted across Angel's face but the sword didn't move an inch. "But they're the same thing."

Xander sighed, feeling that he would probably have to explain this a lot some day. "No they aren't. Superman is a costume that Clark Kent put on when he decided to use his gifts to help people. Clark Kent is a Kryptonian who was raised in Kansas and works at the Daily Planet. Yes, they're the same person, but there would be no Superman without Kent."

Angel began another protest but Xander decided to plunge ahead to avoid questions. "I dressed up as Clark for Halloween. I.E. I dressed up as a Kryptonian. Superman has powers because he has had X amount of years to absorb the sunlight that gives him his abilities. I couldn't have done anything super on Halloween due to the fact that while my biology had already started to change my body hadn't been created to store energy yet. The guy who was here on Halloween was Clark Kent without the benefit of being able to use my 16 years of sunlight."

Angel had backed up while Xander had lectured. Falling numbly into a chair the Vampire looked more pale that usual as the ramifications finally caught up to him.

Xander looked ruefully at the remains of his shirt. Vampires in a feeding frenzy were rough on clothes.

"So what was that that happened tonight? You're charged up now? Your blood is full of solar energy?" Angel stumbled over the ideas as they came from his mouth.

Xander looked at the marks the vamps had left on his shoulders. He couldn't help but notice that the were already looking better than they should have if some kind of change wasn't occurring internally. Wandering over to Angel's closet Xander began to look for a shirt that he liked.

"Well that's the thing, Clark left and took most of his blood with him essentially due to the spell being broken. Somehow, against all the laws of medical science and biology, I was left with an altered DNA structure. From what I can tell, the last month has basically been my body converting all of my blood and stuff into Kryptonian physiology." Xander didn't feel it was necessary to inform Angel that Mxyia had given him a crash course in his new existence with Janus showing visual aids, thus his knowing what the hell was going on. "I'm guessing that the leeches just aren't that good with alien blood. I shouldn't start actually saving any of that gorgeous California sunshine until my body is done changing over. Right now, any energy is being used towards that end."

Angel started to recover from the information overload, particularly when he saw Xander taking one of his few white cotton button ups. "Wait, how do you know all of this?"

Xander realized that he may have tipped his hand and quickly found an excuse that wasn't the truth, but also wasn't a lie. "Well, that's the thing. Before I realized that I was actually a Kryptonian by blood now, I was still stuck with Clark's memories. They must have stuck much better due to my body changing, unlike everyone else. I've had a really bad track record with magic, which is almost funny considering that it probably won't get any better since magic is one of the few forces that can counter any abilities that I might develop." Xander tried to find some tea in Angel's cupboards and rolled up the sleeves of his newly stolen shirt. In a moment of pure Xander he decided that it was tough shit if the vamp minded losing the shirt. He wasn't going to walk home on display.

"Still not answering my question, Harris."

Xander scowled a little at the name. He tended to think of himself as a Kent these days, especially now that he knew he had only the vaguest blood ties to Tony Harris. "Gods, are you always so impatient? I was about to tell you that Clark spent two years straight learning about Krypton. Plus Kryptonians by nature are a second or third level intellect beyond earthlings."

"So instead of being an annoying twit, you might be a genius level annoying twit?"

Xander laughed harshly. "Color me impressed, the king of brooding found a sense of humor. But to answer you, I don't know if I'm going to become really smart or anything. Intelligence is generally modified by environment and what not, so even though my brain structure has probably changed to match Kryptonians, I'll still have some work to get the full use of it, even with Clark's memories in here," Xander found some dusty looking Oolong in the back of Angel's cabinets and set a kettle on to boil.

Angel had started to pace, working over what he was hearing. "You've said that you have Clark's memories, what do you mean Xander? Are you saying you're possessed by him?"

Xander unconsciously ran a hand through his hair, a Clark mannerism that Kent used when he was younger and was a nervous response. "I'd like to say that it's like you and Angelus, but I'm not privvy to how that whole thing works..."

Looking alarmed Angel explained to Xander about Angelus being his ruthless vampire half, and came closer to the surface when he was fighting or when he had to feed.

"Okay, so not really like that at all I guess. Um, I guess, do you feel like the human that you used to be was a different person but still part of you? Not one that directly controls you, but simply a filter through which you see things?" Xander poured two cups of tea and handed one to Angel. He briefly noticed that the animosity between the two had ebbed as the conversation got deeper.

Angel looked conflicted at the analogy. "I guess that's a way of putting it. Li-I mean, the man I was- died the minute Angelus was born and it was a long time before I even gave him a second thought. Even after I had started to come to grips with my soul when it was returned, I didn't really feel like that man..." Angel's eyes became momentarily unfocused during remembering, "but I suppose I can see what you're saying. You've got Clark's memories, but not his mind?"

"Exactly. I won't lie though Angel, I have definitely become more like Clark, certainly as best I could without losing myself. Having almost thirty years of life experiences stacking up against my sixteen...it's a gift. Even if I had never started to change physically, I'd still have counted myself blessed for the chance to to get such a head start on how the world works."

Angel looked at Xander, moving the teen from the mental listing of "boy" to "young man". The frank and honest way Xander was speaking to him, leaving out old fights and what not, garnered respect from Angel.

"So what do you say Angel, do I get the 'do not slay' pass?"

"this is a lot of info Xander, and while part of me wants to wait on making a judgement, I think I can safely say that being on the Hellmouth has opened up my mind. Plus the whole, being a vampire thing and the fact that I can sense that you have a soul despite the way you smell makes me inclined to believe you."

"Oh gross. I hate it when you bring up smell."

Angel almost smiled again. Yes, that was still Xander Harris.

xxx

Buffy Summers sat on a couch watching Angel and Xander spar. Xander was all decked out in white clothes that almost glowed in the light and and Angel was dressed in his usual black. The two were almost playful as they threw punches and kicks, gliding around the mats.

She couldn't help but be a little distracted by Willow's neon pink tutu, but it didn't matter since she couldn't speak Latin anyways.

She was a little shocked that Drusilla was sharing her popcorn with everyone but she figured that anyone wearing such a great blouse with the ash gray slacks she had on couldn't be all bad.

Drusilla looked at Buffy with her yellow eyes that looked almost nice without the vampire ridges and Laughed musically.

"Oh Slayer, don't you know that they dance without you? I think I shall have them both."

Buffy looked over in confusion at the men on the mat and wished that she had sunglasses because Xander's clothes were getting a little too bright. She leaned over to ask Willow what she thought about Drusilla's comment but Willow was busy talking to Giles about the flight speed of swallows or something.

Angel moved in front of Xander in Buffy's line of sight and suddenly all she could see was the moon in front of the sun. A dark shape surrounded by an aura of radiance.

Drusilla's strangely sane voice spoke once more in Buffy's ear, "It's very pretty, but you shouldn't look at an eclipse without properly knowing the weather."

Then Buffy sat straight up in her bed, gasping for breath as the dream started to become blurry and indistinct.

Seriously, no more pumpkin cheesecake before bed. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the image of Giles in a black corset and stockings with a leather jacket. If she was lucky she'd forget about that before going back to school on Monday.

_A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, but I figured letting y'all know that I hadn't forgotten about this fic was more important that a giant update. Love the feedback I'm getting from people and while Much of where I'm going is set, I'm always up for suggestions as to what you like or don't. Thanks!_


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer first chapter

on with the "show" as it were...

_A/N: As always, the purest of steady intentions in terms of producing content gets sullied. F'ing writers block. For those who are wondering where I'm getting some of my dates from, I pulled the air dates from Buffyguide and felt that they were a good measurement of dates, therefore that's where a lot of development time comes from and why weeks are passing for the characters as opposed to a weekly schedule._

_December 15th 1998_

Xander Harris walked slowly from Sunnydale High, cautiously checking that he wasn't followed as he made his way across town. He made a few select stops along the way; the produce stand and the juice bar (working out as hard as he was, Xander had began to need incredible amounts of calories to maintain any level of energy and had become a favored customer at both places), he ran into the comic book store as well, perusing assorted comics with amusement.

Seeing almost familiar faces spread across the colorful pages stirred odd memories for Xander. He had become a firm believer in the concept of the "Multiverse" since he was living proof and wondered if anyone would ever start writing the universe that Xander's Kryptonian legacy had sprung from. Xander personally was doubtful since it was a relatively quiet universe, not prone to annual events to create sales boosts or increase viewers. His journal of stuff that he remembered of that other place had recently needed a third book, it was becoming so fleshed out. Angel recommending meditation to accompany the various exercises he'd added into his routine had boosted his ability to see images clearly- or else his mind was becoming sharper as his body changed.

Satisfied that he wasn't being followed by Buffy or Willow (who had lately shown signs of less than total ignorance to Xander changing- especially when he'd grown an inch and a half since Halloween), Xander ran through a few scraggly backyards as he started to reach the edge of the livable part of town. Finishing his second apple before starting on an energy bar, he threw the apple core a spectacularly normal distance for a built young man. He sighed a little wistfully as he still hadn't been able to find an apple that was a good as a Ross Organic here in Sunnydale, but then again, who could have with a massive apple orchard next door to the Kent home? With a rueful smirk that was pure Xander, the teen jumped one last fence before coming to an abandoned faux-Victorian style mansion. The place had been a nest for some vampires last week, but Angel and Xander had cleaned the joint out since Xander needed a place to host his experiment, which had become a priority after the strangeness of the "Ted" incident.

Xander found the cellar door and went below, the smell of cleanliness contrasting sharply with the peeling paint and boarded doors and windows of the house. On a workbench there were various cleaning supplies and a note from Liam telling Xander that the vampire was getting some sleep before going on patrol with Buffy tonight.

Xander read the back of the note and saw that his friend (and how weird was that as a term for the ensouled vamp?) had left a list of projects in the house that were left and those that had been completed. Xnader dumped his bag with his running clothes and swim gear and found the light pants for his next level of workout.

Making his way to the master bedroom Xander entered and pulled the blackout curtains from the windows, letting in late day sunshine. Xander would have liked to have gotten more sun in today but he knew that balancing his life out with this experiment was hard enough. No reason to become obsessive on it, he wasn't even sure that this would work, what with the insane amounts of magic this universe had going on in the background. Maneuvering one last mirror into place, the room became a blaze of reflected light, mirrors covering most of the surfaces of the walls. Walking into the center of the bedroom, Xander closed his eyes and began to go through the motions of beginners tai chi that Liam had taught him, as well as drawing on the memories of meditating with Diana and the graceful movements the Amazonian princess had taught Clark.

Slowly the world began to slip away as Xander basked in the glow of the light and his breathing settled into a deep rhythm. Going over his forms slowly, Xander allowed a small smile as he felt his body releasing tension and going easily into the supposedly unfamiliar movements.

Xander's mind went to the main subject on his thoughts these days besides Willow and Buffy, which was his supposed abilities. Neither Janus nor Mxyia had put in a nocturnal appearance since their initial palaver with him on Thanksgiving night and the teen had had at least a few occasions to wonder if it really hadn't been a dream. But Liam had reassured him that what Xander's blood could do had been no longing wish to be different, and that Xander remained firmly in the newly non-human category in the vampiric senses.

Soaking up as much sun as he could wasn't a terrible thing, he at least lived in the right state for it, and the cat calls from the cheerleaders as he opted to run topless around the track weren't the worst thing Xander had ever heard. But still, while Xander had grown a bit taller and had experienced some slightly accelerated healing on Thanksgiving from the vampire attack, he still remained very human in all respects. He couldn't be sure that being able to hold his breath while swimming for upwards of five minutes wasn't just because of his working out either, so there had been no luck there. And Liam had pointed out that Xander wasn't getting a tan but was managing not to get a sunburn either. Thus they had conceived of setting up a room full of mirrors and a few lenses, trying to create a natural light 'Sun chamber" as they had deemed it. Of course this was tricky due to Liam's extreme allergy to sunlight, but it was working so far, the boys just made sure they were always very thorough with heavy curtains. When the ensouled vampire was helping to add a mirror to the room.

Working on his balance now, Xander slowly rolled backwards from a standing position onto his hands and tried to go into a hand stand. Feeling his body respond accordingly to his wishes he still didn't allow for a moment of triumph as the last time he did and had ended up slamming into the floor and shaking the whole house.

Xander turned his thoughts to Liam. When Angel had found out and believed what Xander had to say about the events of Halloween, a brief period of days had passed where Xander didn't know if the vamp was going to tell the Scoobies about him or not. When Angel had shown up on Xander's doorstep one night with a bag of training gear Xander had gotten his answer.

Angel knew how hard having such an important secret was and opted that instead of misguidedly trying to "fix" the situation, he would rather help train Xander, to prepare the teen for a possible future as someone who would be firmly entrenched in the world that existed beyond everyday perceptions.

The first things that had been established after a brawl of sorts to find Xander's current limits were direct and to the point. Xander told Angel how he cared for Buffy, still in a somewhat "more than friends" way and hadn't minced words about how Vampires, specifically Angel's sire had turned his best friend Jesse when Buffy had first come to town. Angel had respected Xander's admissions and revealed his former human name to the teen, suggesting that as Clark could refer to Bruce as "Batman", maybe Xander could see Angel as more than a vampire by referring to him by his true name. Xander had gratefully taken the chance to identify Angel differently and had revealed to the vampire that it would help with Xander constantly wanting to call the vampire "Bruce" as well. They had laughed and then they knew that a corner of some kind had been turned. How it would affect their futures neither had an idea of how much, but they knew that they just might have the foundations of a solid friendship on their hands.

Feeling the light start to dim in the room, Xander started to re surface from the depths of meditation and began to focus on the list of cleaning tasks still at hand, unavoidable if the house was ever going to be viable as part of his long term plans, or livable at the very least.

"Too bad Mr. Miyagi isn't here to trick me into thinking training is work," Xander sighed wistfully before throwing a shirt on and grabbing a broom to tackle the untouched kitchen area.

That night Liam found Buffy out patrolling Restfield cemetery, Willow in tow with weapons and a thermos of mochas. He opted to observe the two from the shadows while Buffy finished dispatching a fledgling vamp and easily slipped back into her line of conversation with Willow.

Buffy and Willow's conversation remained on the same topic that it had in the week following Buffy's run in with the sad and strange case of "Ted the Killer Robot".

"Seriously Wills, it's like someone went through his wardrobe and stole all of the Xander clothes," Buffy whispered fervently to her best friend.

"I've heard a lot of girls talking about him Buffy. We're going to have to double up guarding him."

"Since when did Xander decide to bring back corduroy jackets single handedly," Buffy hissed. This whole dragging up clothes style and fashion sense was unheard of, mainly because no one else was dressing like Xander right now. It was drawing too much attention to his developing physique and Buffy didn't like to think about any of the hot to fuzzy feelings about Xander that she'd been getting around her best guy friend- especially not next to Willow.

Willow, for her part, was dealing with all kinds of conflicted emotions. Xander had always been a hottie to her but lately something was different. Xander had become an amazing research partner and his grades had started to swing upwards quite sharply over the past few weeks. Her initial suspicions about Xander being different since Halloween had mellowed somewhat but she still had a feeling in her stomach when he teased her anymore. There was a warmth and strength to Xander now that Willow loved but also wasn't totally sure how to handle. In a rare moment of active parenting at the Rosenberg household, Willow had asked her mother Sheila about it. This had led to a long conversation about Willow's feelings and then Shelia had come to the conclusion that perhaps Willow simply was worried that Xander would start to grow away from Willow if he didn't rely on her anymore for intellectual support. Willow had confronted the possibility that it was just jealousy and fear and did her best to quash any feelings like that. Willow had her suspicions that part of it was the fact that she needed Xander in her life but was starting to have interesting sparkage with Daniel "Oz" Osbourne. That alone caused her to have all kinds of questions about her longtime affection for Xander and had distracted her at school more than once.

Plus, Xander had started getting taller. Willow was almost positive of it. Why that should mess with her more than some of the other stuff, she didn't know, but it did.

Buffy contemplated the two men in her life. Her dream from Thanksgiving surfaced once again and she furrowed her brow as she tried to discern the images it had left her with. Most confusing had been the idea of Xander and Angel being friends or whatever. As a young female Buffy only subconsciously enjoyed that two attractive men in her life seemed to be interested in her, or had at one point. Xander seemed to have cooled off over Buffy in the past months, much to her chagrin.

Just when the boy started to live up to his potential as a person and as an ally in this whole Slayer thing, he turns 180 on her emotionally. She and Willow studied when he worked out sometimes and while it was just running and swimming, sometimes Buffy would catch something deeper than the surface, catching and twisting off of Xander like the sun on a lake.

Last week when Xander had been recovering from the food poisoning that Ted's drug laden food had induced in the poor teen, (which had incidentally been the reason Willow inspected the food and found the drugs that the evil robot had been trying to dope them all with) Buffy had been training in the library and Xander had been in the corner doing his homework, definitely not ogling her as he used to.

There had been a moment though...Xander had passed her a sword and just before he handed it to Buffy he'd hefted the short sword thoughtfully and took a few practice swipes. The slayer side of Buffy had seen strength and something else in him, something that made the Slayer respond to Xander in almost the same way as Buffy did to Angel sometimes, a primal division in her that Buffy had quickly squelched in confusion.

Still uncomfortable thinking about Xander in any way other than her friend, Buffy was glad to see two vamps who need to meet the business end of her stake.

Liam watched his girlfriend from the shadows and knew the look on her face better than some. Buffy was conflicted about something and was throwing herself into slaying to avoid it. He didn't know what it was, but as he was harboring secrets from her about Xander and his uniqueness, he didn't want to pry to heavily, lest the light be turned back around on him. Dispatching a vampire that could have gotten to close to the girls, Liam faded into the background and away from the teens. Despite hating to, he had to brood over what was occurring here in Sunnydale.

Days passed, December turned to January, the holiday season passing peacefully. Buffy had gone to her father's for winter break, so she and Xander hadn't run into each other to much, while Willow's parents opted to go to New York for the holidays. Xander had just trained and worked with Liam to finish the house as a place to rest and relax.

Xander had observed a new ritual this year though and had made a small offering of a meal for Janus. The teen didn't feel like he need to be old school in his offerings, no lambs or virgins, but had simply made a plate of food for Janus when his family had had their usual drunken feast.

The god hadn't spoken to Xander again since the dream on Thanksgiving but Xander didn't worry too much. He knew that His actions were empowering the god and bringing it back from obscurity, it was a relationship that wasn't in need of a paladin or high priest. Out of a strange sense of proprietary belonging Xander had found himself leaving circles in random places around Sunnydale, but no one had connected them with anything other than an odd and random type of inoffensive graffiti.

The teen had decided on the circle when he'd found that Janus had traditionally been worshiped as a god of transitions; the harvest cycle, doorways, youth to adulthood, and most appropriate, Xander had though when he found the description, originally Janus' clean shaven and bearded faces represented the sun and the moon.

That Janus' presence should be noted on the Hellmouth, the transition from one world to the next, only further cemented Xander's belief that this was if not the right thing, it was at least an amusing one that he hoped the old god got a kick out of.

He didn't know if Janus really loved the idea of Chaos being done in his name, but perhaps Xander could change the gods appreciation back towards what he was originally attributed to.

All things considered the year was off to a good start. In another universe the Scoobies had dealt with a Bezoar infestation and the vampiric Gorch brothers. In this universe though, Only the Gorch brothers had come to town, causing Daniel Osbourne to become involved with the group when they had need his van to run down the cowboy vamps. It had been an odd day but the taciturn teen had accepted the presence of the supernatural in an easy going fashion, allowing he and Willow to become closer, much to Xander's pleasure for Willow's happiness and his own unease at the mild jealousy that surfaced in the face of an imminent relationship between his friend and the guitarist.

Mxyia watched Xander from a viewpoint slightly out of phase with Xander's dimension. She had been unable to leave him for too long she'd found, teasing other versions of the Kryptonian had just become less fun in comparison to seeing how Xander was doing. Dimly the 5th dimensional being recognized that she had developed a crush on the young man, but was woefully unequipped to understand how to handle her feelings.

Janus had gone elsesphere for the time being, flexing his reawakened potential, and had been curious as to where all of the connections that sprang from Xander across the multiverse had gone to.

Leaving Mxyia in charge of their "project" he had warned the imp (or was she more of a monstrously powered pixie now? She hadn't decided) not to become directly involved in Xander's life. There would be a time and a place, but the young Kryptonian's system needed time to acclimate to the overwhelming level of magic in this dimension. While Xander had no idea, what his body was going through was akin to a marathon runner trying to train in the highest areas of the Alps while wearing a weight suit that was heavier than him. If all worked out well, a most remarkable thing could occur, but not without a lot of luck.

Thankfully, Xander had two beings looking out for him that considered making their own luck to be a plus.

Of course, you need a lot of luck to get through the day unscathed, especially when Buffy's 16th birthday was right around the corner.

_A/N 2: SORRY SORRY SORRY about the abysmally long amount of time between updates. Especially when it was just another poorly written set up chapter. NO excuses will I offer, but plead for fans of this to stay with me through my ups and downs, and I will once more promise all of you- THIS FIC WILL NEVER BE ABANDONED. I might have a hard time sometimes but it's always on my mind, as are all of the hits this fic gets. You guys are great and you keep me going. Next chapter we will see the Judge, Dru and Spike, and whether or not Angel still has the same criteria for "perfect happiness". Oh and one other comment. For those who are wondering, Xander's fashion is that of Clark's world, which you can figure is near our own time wise. Xander wearing corduroy and jeans is reflective of what Clark would be wearing as a casual outfit now and while it doesn't jive with 1998 fashion, I think Xander would figure out a way to make it work, especially since he doesn't care about what his fellow students think as much as he used too. _


	6. Chapter 6

"Earthbound: Chapter 6"

See disclaimer first chapter.

_A/N: This is a pivotal chapter for this fic, of course I can't find my DVD with the episodes that I would use for source...Did the best I could do with various synopsis so if you see a particular funky plot hole know that it wasn't intentional. Things change from here on out, so this will hopefully mean that I can do less expository style stuff...but I doubt it.. :) Oh and 11,000 hits!! Thanks so much guys! I can hardly believe that this fic is that enjoyable but thank you all the same to everyone who has read and offered their encouragement._

All in all, things were quiet in Sunnydale in the days leading up to Buffy's 17th birthday. The scoobies had settled into an easy rhythm, deceptive in it's slow pace. Willow and Oz dating much sooner than in other universes had created an interesting dynamic as Oz was brought into the supernatural fold much sooner, mainly because he had a van, and found himself the "wheelman" where Cordelia might have been. Little did the young man know that this earlier and more comprehensive introduction to the bizarre and arcane would aid him down the road, but that's a story for later.

Xander had turned a corner in his own romantic life, deciding that he had enough on his plate, as he waited for the other Kryptonian shoe to drop, that girls were something that other non-alien teenage boys had time for. Pouring his energy into working out and writing his journals, Xander did find that this conscious decision to avoid romance granted him a greater width and breadth in his playful flirting. A good portion of Sunnydale High's females must have sensed that the bakery was closed as well since the were redoubling their efforts around the young man, leading to a fascinating contest of the wills between nearly half a dozen young woman (Nancy Doyle and Harmony Kendall being the pack leaders) and Xander's Kent aided resistance to their charms. He did allow that seeing Willow move on in her life may have had something to do with his decision to retire temporarily, but blamed his "Clark-ness" confusing her with Lana Lang for any angst that it may have spawned, not trusting any feelings past the love he had already had for Willow pre-Halloween. Of course he still flirted at her, just because seeing Willow stammer was so much fun.

Though the January days were ultimately a scholastically short time since Halloween, Xander's increased aptitude was not unnoticed by the staff of the school. Most notably Principal Snyder, who had made Xander pray daily for super hearing (to no avail) so that he could hear the pompous troll's approach as Snyder tried again and again to ambush Xander, trying to see if the teen was cheating in every single class. Despite the faculty attempting to protect Xander (they felt that he was the result of their teaching finally breaking through to one of those who could be more and had no shortage of self congratulations for shaping his mind) Snyder had still managed to spring no fewer than 7 pop quizzes on the teen since mid November, across the course of 6 unwarranted lunch time detentions. Xander accepted all of this with a smirk and held his tongue in regards to the more colorful insults his mind created, largely due to his alternate memories of a life post high school being a light at the end of the tunnel. Plus, nailing all of the quizzes under the nasty prick's eyes was getting to be kind of fun, but it would be better if it didn't interrupt the all important lunchtime.

Now at a day before Buffy's birthday, Xander found himself racing back and forth in the Sunnydale High swimming pool. The coach had started to allow him to workout at the same time as the team, despite Xander refusing to join on grounds of an overloaded schedule. The swim team guys weren't to bad...well okay they were mostly jerks, but Xander just glided in those waters socially as easy, if not easier, as he did the pool itself. Finishing his workout and heading for the showers, Xander hit the showers, dreaming of the clouds and never expecting what was around the corner.

Buffy Summers paced the entrance to the boys locker room. Willow and Oz had headed off to the Bronze after school to set up for the Dingoe's show and Buffy had a chance to catch the ever more perplexing Xander alone. Now the Slayer was dealing with a school of hamsters having the equivalent of a battle royale in her stomach and smoothed her skirt out nervously.

For the last month now, Buffy had been torn between her love for Angel and whatever was causing this attraction to Xander. It was irrational and almost felt forced, but whatever it was, Buffy had been unable to come to grips with why she felt so keyed up around her best guy friend. It had grown steadily stronger as time had gone by, pulsing in her, an electric hook in her body when she saw Xander. It was intolerable and she had come to the decision to get to the bottom of it all.

_Calm down Buffy, this isn't a biggie…Xander is your friend…he's not going to laugh at you…_She still bit her lip and waited to catch Xander before he took off for wherever he went after school these days.

Her nerves tightened up a few more notches as Xander came out of the locker room, laughing easily with a few of the swim team members. Buffy saw the source of her nerves grin easily and run a hand through his damp hair, his jeans and flannel shirt hanging nicely on Xander's frame.

_Farm boy look today…oh boy, this might be harder than I thought…_

"So Buff, to what do I owe the honor?"

"Oh, y'know, Giles is with Jenny since today is a slay practice free day...just though I'd catch up with you before the show tonight."

Buffy realized that all of the conversations that she had prepared for were not worth a damn when Xander slung an arm around her casually and her insides started screaming. A primal voice welled inside of her that seemed drenched with sunlight and deserts, caked in clay, roaring for Buffy to act, which led to a very confused Xander as Buffy's 5' 3" suddenly turned and grabbed him by his shirt and pulled Xander into a scorching kiss.

_Elsewhere_

Mxyia watched the proceedings below with a mixture of amusement. Her "feelings" for Xander Kent aside, she was still who she was and enjoyed watching the almost full blooded Kryptonian get into these situations. She was currently residing in the image of the Kent farmhouse that had been created for the palaver with Xander, she had found it to be comfortable and homey in the extreme. She had turned all of the windows into viewing portals to other versions of Xander, as she decided that he was almost as fun as watching Kal-El.

None held the fascination that this version held though, and part of the pixie realized that Xander Kent was special, more than her and Janus knew.

Standing in front of a full length mirror and snapping her fingers to run through a variety of different outfits as she kept an eye on the happenings elsewhere, she scowled as her reflection shimmered and changed to _him_.

"I thought I told you to go away!" Mxyia scowled as all of her attention was focused on the mirror.

"Listen sweetie, you might think that this is fun and all, but I will come back, whether you like it or not!" The imp growled and pounded his fist against the reflective surface.

Mxyia took a step back from the mirror as she felt his anger come through the glass. "Listen, I'm sorry, but I can't be sure that you won't send me away, so no go." The teen shaped creature's voice took a plaintive note. "It's fun here, and you did it to yourself. Please go away!"

Mxyzptlk glared from the mirror. "This is unnatural and disturbing you little brat! I didn't get Janus to save that kid just so you could start crushing on him," the little man's voice reached a shriek that rattled the house. "When have I ever given an inkling that I looked at the Kryptonians as anything other than toys to be played with!"

Mxyia shook her head and tried to stand against the anger coming at her. "You may have thought all the worlds were a play, but I don't think like that. Get used to this, old man, you're staying put."

Mxyzptlk fumed and tore his hat into pieces in a fit. "Stay away from mirrors if you know what's good for you, kid." With a pop, Mxyia's reflection resumed it's regular programming of a slightly coltish teen girl with long silver hair. With a sigh, she put her hand to her reflection, a worried look on her own face, and wasn't at all reassured when the face in the mirror gave a sympathetic smile and winked.

Xander and Buffy stood in the empty halls of Sunnydale high, locked in a powerful kiss. A gifted seer or magic user would see sparks literally flying from the two, Xander's summer bright aura mingling gently with the Fall day sunshine that Buffy's aura resembled. Given his level of surprise at Buffy's assault on his lips, Xander had quickly warmed to the kiss, figuring that whatever the case, he wasn't going to waste the opportunity, even if whatever was happening would never work.

In the long seconds within, both teens minds ran through a wild variety of thoughts. Xander was struck at the combination of raspberry and cinnamon that Buffy seemed to taste of, as well as how quickly he was going to have to tell Liam about this. Buffy's mind focused on this kiss, this moment she had snatched out of need and almost desperation at trying to understand what was happening in her life. Her mind raced back and forth between the images of Xander and Angel sparring in her dream from Thanksgiving and how something was happening to her, but not what she thought it would be.

Finally, the two pulled apart somehow finding a mutual unspoken agreement to stop and breathe. As Xander crossed his arms at looked at Buffy with a very Xanderish grin on his face Buffy could only think of one thing to say.

"Well shit."

Xander bust out laughing and gave Buffy a mock stern glare. "Something you want to say Buff? Anything you want to get off of your chest?"

The Slayer began to pace back and forth in front of Xander, exasperation painting her features. "Xander! This isn't funny!"

"You sure about that Buffy? Seems pretty funny to me." Xander watched with some humor as Buffy glared at him while running her hands through her hair.

"What could possibly be so funny about me kissing you?"

"The fact that you don't love me for starters."

An expression of pain flashed across Buffy's face, "Xander...you know that's not true..."

"Sorry Buff, let me rephrase that, you aren't in love with me...I know you care about me as a friend, even though I've been so busy lately."

Buffy's concern lessened but then she was brought back to what had just happened, her head feeling like it was finally clearing up and on straight. "Xander...about what just happened..."

Xander looped his arm through hers and began walking out of the school. "C'mon Buff, let me buy you a coffee and let's talk."

A little while later at the coffee shop Buffy regarded Xander calmly, this being the first time in months that the two friends had really talked. After Buffy had explained her confusion as best she could they came to an impasse as Xander still hadn't revealed his cards.

"I don't know what it was Xan, it just seemed like something I had to do...part of me couldn't stop thinking about it and I don't know why...do you think we should talk to Giles?"

Xander took a deep drink of his tea and looked at Buffy appraisingly. "Well Buff, do you still feel like you do? Now that you've kissed me?"

"See that's just it...I feel like whatever it was has gone away...or like I've eliminated that possibility. Don't get me wrong Xander, that was a good kiss." Buffy reflected for a moment, "Yeah, REALLY good," The friends laughed before she continued, "but it wasn't the answer I guess...It just makes me wonder, what's going on. Maybe it's my birthday, maybe it's Angel, he's been different lately..."

Little warning signs went off in Xander's head and he decided to steer Buffy back towards the "problem" as it were. "Well, describe the feeling to me again, up to the kiss and afterwards."

Buffy sighed, still feeling embarrassed. " Like I said before Xander, something in me was just reacting to you, drawn to you. Not to sound shallow but ever since you started working out..." Buffy stopped for a moment as it dawned on her, "ever since Halloween."

The words out in the air, the conversation leapt tracks suddenly. Buffy looked thoughtful and Xander just took a deep breath. _No matter how many times you read about it or see it, it's never easy telling this secret. _The Clark that Xander knew had never shared his secret with anyone other than Lana, Pete having found out in that particular universe when the boys were 14 and Clark went to slam dunk a basketball during a one on one match and jumped over the Ross' barn the backboard was attached to.

Sighing, Xander decided that part of the truth was about all he could do for his friend right now. "Buffy..listen, I don't know why you reacted that way to me...I have an idea that maybe some changes I'm going through may have caused your Slay-dar to react so strongly. The leeches around this town have certainly been acting different towards me lately, so it wouldn't surprise me that the Slayer would pick up something." Buffy pleasantly surprised Xander by letting him continue uninterrupted, despite her eyebrows leaping at the admission that Xander had been playing outside after dark. "The fact is that I dressed as someone for Halloween that you guys didn't really pick up on and there have been consequences to that night." Buffy saw something emerging from the playful facade that Xander had erected like a wall around him over the past few months, it came from within and for a moment she saw a glimpse of who Xander would be as a man.

"I won't tell you everything now Buffy, you and I still have some interesting issues to work out, but suffice to say that this isn't a danger to you or anyone we both care for, but I can say that when I understand it better, you'll be one of the first to know the whole story."

Xander's voice had become quiet as he laid it out for her and she found herself trusting him, despite the fact that she had never been comfortable giving up control of her world, especially to a Slayer type situation. "I am glad though that you got it out of your system though Buff, the thought of you tearing my clothes off because the Slayer in you said to do it is just an awful thought," Xander smirked, and just like that, Buffy saw the walls go back up. But she knew they were there know, and that someday they might come down, and Buffy resolved to be there for him when they did.

Xander finished his tea, a slight grimace over it going cold, "I've gotta run if I'm going to get all of my errands done before coming out tonight, I'll see you at the Bronze." Another flash of this new Xander came forward as he casually kissed the top of Buffy's head in brotherly affection on the way out the door and Buffy sat at the cafe for awhile, looking at the curve of her world.

_Elsesphere_

Janus struggled to his feet, having just been the recipient of a massive blast of energy across the link that he and Xander shared. Just like Mxyzptlk had said on that Halloween night, whenever Xander interfered in the plans of the PTB's and caused their carefully laid destinies to go awry , Janus would receive some measure of power from it. _Whatever my boy just did must have been a massive cock up for that arrogant pantheon of control freaks..._ Brushing the dust of the corridors between realities off of his clothes, Janus realized he felt different physically.

Conjuring a mirror, the god gaped at his visage. Technically gods are shaped by mortals, whether they like it or not. Many gods become what people want them to be, often this reflects a fixed state of being or certainly one that reflects the beliefs and views of the moment. In the space of a few short months on Earth (though time moves differently for gods) Janus had gone from a very standard classical roman style bust kind of god, to a form that Xander Harris would respond more openly to, hence the elderly cheerful man Xander met in the kitchen of the "Kent" farm. However, in line with Xander's own beliefs in a pliable fluctuating universe, Janus had started to evolve back to a more free form. No matter the few Chaos mages that still tried to invoke Janus' power, Xander had become intrinsically linked to the god, and the lad was almost solely responsible for the changes present now.

The face that Janus saw was that of a man in his late 30's or a well kept 40, an honest face, open and with a clean shave. An edge existed in the eyes though and the smile wasn't without a bit of a smirk. In many ways it was the face of a warrior priest, an active scholar who was as comfortable searching a cave for relics as he was lecturing in front an attentive crowd. The power boost that Xander had caused had reshaped the god upon arrival, and in his mind he had started to remember lives never lived, his own link to the multiverse flooding him with data and what Janus had represented to a multitude of cultures entering into the gods views once more. He searched the link and grinned at the interaction between his boy and the Slayer, it was unexpected but he could see paths of probability and fortune spreading forwards and backwards from the interaction in the cafe. _Who would have thought that one boy could affect such great change? _Janus thought with a smile. Feeling all shiny and new, Janus set off to follow more of the spokes that went from Xander to different beings in the multiverse. _So much fun to have and all the time in the worlds to have it in, _Janus thought as he honed in on a plucky blond reporter that a line of force led him to.

Buffy stood in the Bronze, the air thick and strange. Her mother was there, speaking secrets with disdain on her face. Willow and Oz sit in a corner picking out dog collars for some reason. Xander and Angel seemed to be on the dance floor, bound in chains and Buffy couldn't help them. Suddenly Drusilla was there, a knife held to the throats of Xander and Angel.

Dru looked at Buffy with hunting eyes and said in a voice unlike the sing song lilt she normally spoke in, "You know Buffy, it's my birthday too. But you've taken all of my presents."

Buffy found herself frozen in horror as the knives started to saw flesh and bone.

"Happy Birthday to us Buffy."

Buffy couldn't even scream as Dru started to advance towards everyone else, the knives shining like bloody thieves.

Liam was glad that he hadn't stayed at the mansion last night, especially when Buffy started pounding on the door. Holding his girlfriend as she relayed her dream he tried to rationalize as best he could. "Didn't you say that you had another dream about Drusilla though? What was different about this one?"

'I don't know! It was terrifying though. She was terrifying Angel, worse than the Master even, there was something so detached about her..especially how flat her voice was." Buffy feverishly kissed him again and they began to go back towards a place that they hadn't yet gone. Angel realized that he wanted Buffy, even with all the soul searching he'd done about his age and hers, about the disparity between them, even what he knew about Xander between them.

Buffy moaned into his mouth and began to slide her hands under his shirt and while he wanted her to keep going, Angel knew she had school and he needed her to be honest with him. Pulling back from her, Liam decided to defuse the situation in what would hopefully be a humorous way.

"Hey Buffy?"

"Yeah," she murmured as she rested her head on her boyfriends cool chest.

"Why do you smell like Xander?" Liam asked with a cocked eyebrow, never betraying for a second that Xander had laughingly but cautiously filled the vamp in on how the Slayer had reacted to Xander's kryptonian side the night before.

Buffy's blush and stammer started a whole conversation between the couple that thankfully(for their libidos) had little to do with things of a physical nature.

"So he didn't mind about what happened with Xander?" Willow asked with a bit of wonder in her voice.

"He was pretty awful with the teasing, but yeah, he was very understanding about the whole thing," Buffy laughed it off, but was a little concerned that she hadn't been able to tell Willow about Xander's partial revelation over coffee and tea. When she'd been pressed, Buffy had lamely said that the chemistry just wasn't what she thought it would have been and watched as Willow took a small measure of comfort in that, despite her and Oz becoming more serious than ever apparently.

"You did seem all flushed when you got here today," Willow said with something resembling a leer.

"Bad Willow!" Buffy admonished before giving her best friend an arch look, "How about you? Has the guitar player found any chords yet?"

Willow flushed and the girls continued the back and forth all the way to class.

"Are you sure Jenny? It has to be this way?"

Jenny Calender bit her lip and wrapped her arms around Rupert out of view of the library. She wished that she wasn't who she was, that she didn't have this task, but blood was blood. She was grateful that Giles had seemed to accept, if not totally understand that.

In another reality, Jenny and Giles were divided over the Ehygon event and therefore had not been together when her Uncle Enyos had demanded that "Janna of the Kalderash" fulfill her obligations to perpetuate the suffering of Angelus, however in this reality they had been returning to Giles' apartment after a late dinner when they found her uncle waiting for them both. He had railed at Jenny for forgetting herself and Rupert had come close to real violence at the way this stranger had hurt Jenny with words. Ultimately the conflict had been resolved when the seriousness of the problem that lay before them had become clear to Giles.

Giles had found that as his affection for Buffy grew his feelings towards her calling grew more antagonistic. While he in no way considered himself to be a father figure (yet) to the girl, he had seen the pain that her calling had caused her and wanted no part in furthering his charge's anguish.

"Rupert...you know that I care about them as well, I even find myself caring about how this will affect Angel...but we have to separate them somehow. Especially today."

Giles looked at his girlfriend not quite comprehending the direction the conversation was taking, and had the subject not been so serious, she would have laughed at his properness and kissed him, school policy be damned.

"I know that you haven't been a teenage girl in, well, ever, dear, but try to understand that birthdays sometimes have a significant meaning to teenagers...sometimes they like to-"

"Yes, I think I quite understand now," Giles stammered and began to polish his glasses.

This time Jenny did laugh and kissed her boyfriend.

Drusilla watched as her lovely Spike made the people make her party wonderful. She danced and swayed as she listened to the stars singing songs of destruction, lovely, lovely.

But wait, something wasn't right, the songs were changing, the tempo spinning and shrieking...

"Dru, you all right love?" Spike could see Dru's gentle swaying lasciviously in her red dress and cursed his thrice damned wheelchair and the Slayer who put him there for the umpteenth time.

"Spike..." Drusilla's face took on a pained expression, "the stars, they're saying the most awful things, Miss Edith won't stop shouting and it's all dreadful..." Dru began to pull at her hair and then began to rock back and forth, a keening wail coming from deep inside her chest.

"Pet," Spike whispered, pulling her into his lap, "Pet, everything will be fine. I promise. Your party will be wonderful...look at the lovely prezzies..." He was worried as the last time she had been this bad was right after Prague and she only just recently was back up to full strength.

At the mention of her presents Dru suddenly snapped back, glee sparking in her eyes.

"Can I open one?" Dru asked, knowing that her beautiful Spike wouldn't deny her.

"I suppose, seeing as you've been such a good lass lately..." Spike drawled, relieved to see his girl back to what passed for regular.

Dru opted for the smaller of the boxes stacked on the table and squealed in delight when the sleeping head of the Judge was revealed to her.

Xander wasn't having the greatest of days. Something had set Tony off last night after he had gotten back in and the old man had decided that Xander's car washing job had been sub par, which had led to the belt. The bruises had led Xander to put off swimming, even though they were already to the greenish yellow that should have taken a week at least. It had been awhile since Tony had unleashed and while Xander had dully let the old man do his thing so as to avoid it going towards Jessica, Xander had realized as he ran this morning in a full track suit that he just didn't care about the Harris' anymore. He lived in their house, cooked and cleaned for them and except for not wanting to hate anything, he couldn't help but wish them both to hades.

He had dreamt of the corn fields and apple pie last night, and while Xander normally regarded those Kent dreams as the best part of sleeping, today they had caused him to weep bitterly in the shower as the needles of hot water tried to release the knots of pain in his body.

Snyder had nailed him first thing this morning as well, demanding why Xander was late in getting to class after he'd been slow in washing up after his workout since he'd been avoiding anyone in the locker room. That had landed him detention for the week since Xander had been unable to unleash a barrage of choice comments about Snyder's political leanings as well as the general shape of the school principals family tree (Xander had loudly speculated that it may just be a circle).

All things considered, he could imagine a worse day, but he doubted that Lex Luthor could get at him in this reality so it was kind of moot.

As lunchtime rolled around, Xander dutifully reported for the first in a series of detentions and was thankful that Snyder was off giving the new head of the school board a tour of the facilities. As he blew through his English paper, Xander suddenly found the classroom full of a dim silver fog.

Suddenly aware that all the noises that signified that you weren't in the twilight zone had ceased Xander decided to explore the situation further.

Wandering the halls, Xander wasn't as surprised as he could have been when he got to library and found that it wasn't empty like everywhere else.

There sitting on the table was Mxyia, looking like she didn't have a care in the world.

Mxyia pretending to ignore that he had found her gave Xander time to take in the young "woman" in front of him. Her long silver hair had been pulled into a high ponytail and besides wearing a pale green spaghetti strap tank, she was mixing it with a dark plum pleather mini and knee high black boots.

"You know, if I didn't know better I'd say that you had dressed to impress today," Xander ventured casually as he took a seat opposite her.

"Well McGurk, I saw that you were having a day so I thought you could use a time out." She said evenly, pretending to flip through one of Giles' tomes.

Xander pursed his lips. He'd read about all of Mxyzptlk's appearances in what he could get his hands on, and knew that the imp had a quirky sense of humor that could border on malicious depending on the writer, but that wasn't the vibe he was getting here. For some reason the feeling of safety permeated the air.

"So am I asleep back there in the real world then?"

"You got it Ace," she fired back without even looking up.

_Okay...While I'm glad for the TO I wish I knew what was going on with the imp..._

Mxyia looked up and winked at Xander, "Don't worry, I've got Snyder's aura lojacked. If that slime gets close to you we'll have you bright eyed and bushy tailed in a sec."

Xander was still bemused but grateful, "Thanks Mxy. I know you can read my mind but I'll just say it anyways. I don't know why you're doing this, but I appreciate it."

She beamed a smile that Xander found distracting for some reason and grabbed a different book from the pile that had been stacked on the table.

"So I hope you forgive me for asking, but why a girl? Or why are you still a girl?"

Mxyia looked at Xander thoughtfully before leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand. "This isn't an act Xander, it's who I am."

"So you had gender issues?" Xander asked in the most polite way possible which got a rueful smirk from the girl across from him.

"Xander, despite what has been tapped by the creative minds in this reality, they were still pretty far from the mark. The kind of being I am is something beyond flesh, beyond gender at least." She got up and raided Giles' office for some water and the librarians hidden jaffa cakes. "Were I to go back to where I am from I would be more a force of will than anything else." She doled out a few biscuits to Xander before biting into one herself, a pleased look on her young face. "Mmm, you know I haven't ever tried these before- well, not in this form at least."

Xander tried to wrap his mind around what she had offered up and when he turned on the Clark part of his brain he saw a little more clearly. "So this isn't a you as a guy or gal thing, this is a "I'm pure energy and could be guy, girl, cat, square, polka dot, anything at all" thing, right?"

He was rewarded with another smile and some more jaffa cakes. "You got it. But at the same time it still isn't even that simple." She tapped her chin while she tried to put it into words before continuing "Honestly though, until my little gender swap thing backfired over in that reality i had never taken on a female form...it was always the little man with the derby hat. I feel less like Mxyzptlk as a girl and more like Mxyia who was created as a 15 on the cusp of 16 year old at the exact second that whole mess occured. Got the power and the memories but it's like he's someone else...I don't think he likes me very much," Mxyia finished a little wistfully.

A moment passed before she shook it off and smiled again, her green eyes flashing in the serene silver light. "Doesn't matter though, he's not coming back ." Xander couldn't help but notice that the smile faltered a little when she said that. "Anyways, Ace, enough of that, you want to play chess?"

At the end of the lunch period, Snyder snuck back to the classroom where he'd parked Harris, determined to find the brat up to something, _anything_, but instead he found Xander finishing some chem homework and having an infuriating hint of a smile on his face. While neither of the men could see her, Mxyia bit her lip nervously and ran an unfelt hand across Xander's neck.

"Good luck tonight Ace."

That night everyone congregated at the Bronze for Buffy's surprise party, Xander being the last to get there other than Buffy, he found a dour faced(more than usual at least) Liam hanging out near the pool table.

"What's up, Bats? You look like the house just burned down." Xander said with a little concern for his friend.

Liam just looked at Xander like he just realized that the teen was there before coming out of his brood slightly. "What? Oh hey Xander...it's nothing, just been a long day..."

Xander shot the vamp a strange look as he'd become familiar enough with the undead Irish man to know that something was most definitely up. "I hear you on that...remind me to tell you about my encounter with the flip side and what is Joyce Summers doing here?" Xander finished weakly as Buffy's mom walked into the Bronze.

Let's you and I step aside for a moment shall we? All to often, Fate (or the Powers That Be in this case), plays games with us all. In this case, this was an attempt on their part to get back at the scoobies for Xander upsetting their house of cards concerning the scrapping of the Cordelia plan completely, not to mention fortifying Giles and Jenny's relationship against the wishes of the Powers.

Earlier that day, Joyce had spoken to Oz when he'd been deployed to find out if Joyce had any plans for Buffy's birthday(which of course wouldn't have happened if Cordelia had still been part of the group and Oz's inclusion was still not to happen until tonight). Oz's normally tight lipped nature had fallen apart around Joyce as he found her in gallery all by herself playing the oldies rock station loudly on her lunch. Their conversation had lasted awhile and where Cordy would have been evasive(if not rude) to Joyce, Oz let it slip that the reason they wanted to know Joyce's plans was because of the surprise party. After Oz left (leaving a pleasant impression on the elder Summers) Joyce then decided to check in on the kids that night, mainly to see her daughter interact with her friends, also because she wanted to meet the two adults who seemed to be seeing her daughter more than her lately.

Naturally all things being convergent, Joyce walked into the Bronze just before Buffy crashed through a window while grappling with a vampire over a wooden box. As Buffy did her thing with the stake and the poofing of the undead menace, Joyce was confronted with the true nature of why her daughter insisting on crucifixes as decorative jewelry. And now back to the story already in progress...

"What do you mean that was a real life vampire!" Joyce shrieked, not handling the very sudden intrusion of darkness into her world.

"I don't know how I can make this any simpler Mom! I was chosen to destroy vampires, it's that easy! Okay maybe that was too simple, but still!"

Xander just looked at Giles and motioned for their de facto sage to get in the game and help his Slayer out while Liam just shook his head and muttered about "perfect timing" and "bloody gypsies". Oz stood back, holding on to Willow as the hacker just whimpered at the birthday party going to hell on a rocket sled.

"Buffy, this is crazy! This -this-" Joyce flailed her arms in frustration.

"This is very real Mrs. Summers." Giles said quietly and with a sense of finality. "Your daughter is an amazing young woman who does a job that few will ever know about. And she is damn good at it I might add. She will live her life unappreciated by the public at large for saving them over and over again from the worst things they've never dreamt of. Whether or not you like this fact, you must accept it- especially if you want to hold on to your sanity and your love for you daughter." Somehow Giles' word penetrated the haze of disbelief and fury in Joyce and the wind simply went out of her sails.

Buffy just looked at Giles, grateful tears in her eyes before calmly walking over to her mother and pulling the stunned woman into a hug.

"I love you Mom. I will always be your little girl, but this is bigger than you or me. You don't have to talk about this with me or even acknowledge that it happens if you don't want to but it's not something I can quit doing...believe me I've tried."

"Oh Buffy..." words failed Joyce as she thought back over the past few years, to the strange rips and tears in her daughters clothes, the blood stains that she'd just quit seeing, and while she couldn't take all of this in now, she decided that she would never turn her back on her daughter, no matter what. Joyce turned and looked at Buffy's friends and at Mr. Giles and Ms. Calender and realized that they were more than just teachers. Returning to over protective mother mode she turned a fraction of that force where it belonged, rather than at her daughter. "Mr. Giles, I can only assume because of that speech that you are more than Buffy's librarian. Therefore, you and I will be having words later. Understood?"

Giles nodded his head and recognized a fellow warrior on the field. The two non verbally agreed to put it aside for now though.

That crisis somehow over with for now, the group decided to have some cake, until they remembered the box that Buffy had wrested away from the vampire. Popping the latches on it, Joyce only fainted after the disembodied right arm within the box grabbed Buffy by the throat and tried to strangle her.

"Buffy!" Liam roared and was by her side in a second, wrestling with the armored arm as Jenny and Willow attended to Mrs. Summers. Oz and Giles managed to reset the clasps on the box as Liam who had been stand offish in the presence of Joyce pulled his love into his arms.

Xander was in surveillance mode. The box, Joyce, Liam's mood, his mind was taking all of the data and compiling it with his borrowed reporter's mind. Another part of him wanted the familiar feel of blue and red against him, if only to feel like he had a small measure of control. Subconsciously, Xander traced a circle on his palm and idly wondered if Janus was watching over him on this one, something big was coming, his instincts were screaming about it.

"You lost it." Drusilla stated dangerously, "You lost my present."

"I-I'm sorry...The Slayer just showed up! I couldn't have known-"

Drusilla shrieked and slashed Dalton across the face before throwing him across the room, causing various minions to scatter before the force of Dru's anger.

"Easy, pet.." Spike cautioned, his voice betraying none of his unease at his love's break. "If you kill him he can't get your present back for you, can he?"

Drusilla spun around snarling, her body tensed for violence. Spike noted that even with her fangs out, Dru's forehead remained uncharacteristically smooth. She clamped down on the arms of the wheelchair and just as the metal started to shriek under her grip, the haze cleared for Drusilla's eyes as her Spike looked into her soul and calmed her once more. Dru's face crumpled and tears began to flow as she climbed into Spike's lap. "Oh my Spike, it's awful...I can't hear anything! Nothing at all! The winds is roaring and the last sun is coming to dance with the moon...So dark..."

Spike cooed into her ear, breathing promises of bloody violence.

"But it won't be fine Spike! That bloody slayer! It's her fault somehow...we should have torn her throat out on All Hallows Eve like the bleating lamb she is..." Dru just began to mumble as the visions that had been with her fled her mind and she buried her face in Spike's shoulder.

Spike's eyes flashed gold as he sized up the minions who hadn't scattered too far. "You and you," he pointed at two of the less dumb, his arm as forceful as a whip crack, "you go get her something to eat right the hell now. Don't bother coming back here if it isn't fresh as a toddler, or so help me I'll eat your eyes out myself." Wheeling over to Dalton, Spike grabbed the bookworm and threw him against the wall. Yanking Dalton back down to eye level, Spike spoke dangerously quiet over Dru's shaking head. "Look what you've done you stupid swot. If you ruin her night any more, I will make you into scraps before we hang you out to dry in the sunshine, do you understand? No acknowledgment needed mate, just get the hell going."

The vampire wisely fled, stopping only to grab a gang to retrieve Drusilla's present to the world.

At the Bronze, the gang reeled in shock at the information Liam had given them about the owner of the arm. "This thing is bad people, worse than I ever saw as Angelus, and believe me, that one consorted with worse than the Devil itself. If they have the other parts of the Judge already than it's key that we get this out of here."

Buffy stood, arms crossed and a dark look on her face. "So you're saying that if he gets put back together hell end humanity?" Buffy looked at her Mother who was recovering slowly from the shocks she received already. "Next year we're staying in Mom. You, me, "A River Runs Through It". I swear, birthdays better not all be this fun from here on out."

Joyce laughed weakly, "Wait till you hit the topside of divorced at forty dear, then you'll know what real terror is." A quiet chuckle passed through the room, everyone impressed with Mrs. Summers playing along so well so quickly.

The gang went into crisis mode for the third time in an hour, all visibly straining a bit under the emotional roller coaster, but knowing that they had no other options.

Slowly, they started organizing Buffy's gifts, packing them away until they could be opened and enjoyed and Xander and Liam spoke quietly as Buffy talked to Giles and Jenny about the Judge.

"So which one of us is getting this thing to the ends of the earth?" Xander said this calmly, totally prepared to leave if it meant his friends would be safe.

Liam looked as his friend, truly his friend at this simple idea, willing to go for those he cared for. "Obviously me Xander. No offense but have you ever been out of California? This is going to require Tibet distance, if not somehow further...I know a mage in Japan, he may even be able to open a portal..."

"So what, you think you're going to leave this dimension? Not likely Brucie boy. And you've read some of my journals, whether or not I remember every language Clark learned, I still remember how to move through the world."

At the Brucie boy comment, a hint of a smile appeared on Liam's face, _the kid is good at getting people to laugh, damn him_, "Xander, you don't even have a passport!"

"You can't walk in the sunshine Dead Boy! How do you plan on moving in the country side where there aren't any sewers? Burrow?"

The two squared off, a fight brewing over who would be the one to willingly go into exile. Aware that they were starting to draw attention, Liam pulled Xander to the side. "Listen, Xander... Earlier I spoke with Giles...I learned some things..." Liam looked at Buffy briefly and grief washed over his features. "The last thing she needs now is me hanging around. I'm going whether you like it or not, _kid_."

Xander jerked at the jibe against him, but Liam was always overlooking that he wasn't dealing with the Xander of yore, and Xander had a lifetime of subterfuge lessons from Clark "I'm a stumbling tool" Kent and all the acting lessons Clark had put up with so as to get people to ignore him. "Nice misdirection. Almost worked too, if you hadn't forgotten that you aren't speaking to your average bear. What is it? What did G-man say?"

Liam's temper started to rise, but he bit it back in time to avoid saying anything he would regret. "It doesn't matter. All that does matter is that we're wasting time," Liam increased the volume so that everyone could hear, "If I go right now I can be on a cargo ship headed for China inside an hour. One's leaving from the docks before heading to LA." Both men saw the alarm on Buffy's face, but only Xander saw the look that passed between Giles and Jenny.

"What? But you can't! I- I-" Buffy became suddenly aware of her mother being in the room, and that the woman could see that Buffy's occasional "history tutor" was obviously more. Making the decision that forgiveness was easier than permission, Buffy went to the man she loved, her heart beating wildly.

The two pulled close, angst emanating from them in waves. "But it's my birthday.." Buffy whispered.

"I know Buffy," Liam to a deep breath, taking in the smell of Buffy, feeling as if it was like life's breath, "but like you said to your Mom, this is bigger than us. I'm the only one here who has the strength to protect the arm, you have to stay and protect the Hellmouth."

Hearts breaking in sympathy, everyone turned away to allow them a moment. Xander felt keys being pressed into his hand and turned to find Joyce. "Buffy's a terror behind the wheel," Joyce said quietly, "I've watched you lately Xander, you've changed, and you aren't quite as subtle as you'd like, but you're getting there."

"Mrs. Summers, I-"

"You're a good boy Xander. Drive them and bring her back to me. You're the only one here that can I think."

Xander pulled the amazing woman in front of him into a hug, his frame wrapping her, _You and Ma would have gotten along Joyce_. She was the only mom he'd met in this life that came close to Martha Kent, and he resolved to try and get to know her better after tonight.

Buffy and Liam remained locked together in grief and Xander went to the table and grabbed the box, surprised at it's weight, and the ease with which it didn't trouble him. "C'mon kids," he whispered to them, "We've got a boat to catch."

Xander leaned against the hood of Joyce's Jeep Cherokee, giving his friends a moment alone near the cargo loader at the Sunnydale docks. For the first time since the possibility of future abilities had arrived in his live, Xander cursed them. _If my damn body would get with the program I could have had this arm on the moon by now! _ Feeling old anger exacerbated by his situation at home, Xander quickly seized and squelched the emotions. Should his Kryptonian gifts ever come online, he would have no place for tantrums. He reflected that that was one of the great fears that he grappled with almost daily, _Am I deserving of this? Will I have what it takes to be good enough come the day? _He wished that he could speak to Clark, to have the Fortress at his disposal, if only to hear the echoes of Lara and Jor-El. He allowed his mind to wander the halls of crystal and gold, strangely minimalistic but warm and inviting. He could almost see the memory chamber where all of the libraries of the different civilizations that the Kryptonian brainiac probes had covertly scanned and cataloged resided.

It was because of this daydream that Xander was a moment too slow when he heard Buffy's scream, was a moment too late to avoid the baseball bat that filled his head with the darkest of starbursts.

"Come on now whelp, wakey wakey and all that rot," a British voice that was supposed to be ashes under a church drawled.

Xander struggled back up to wakefulness, realizing that he was bound and at the tender mercies of the worst of possible foes. Anger flooded him and cleared his head, better than any caffeinated beverage.

"That's right," Spike taunted, "you are in a fix now, aren't ya? All dressed up and no Slayer to run in and dance for you."

Xander spat the dirt from the factory floor out of his mouth, "You know Wheels, I'm not sure you'd be that good of a dance partner these days. If you'd like I could ring up some girl scouts, I'm guessing that's about your skill level."

Despite the flash of anger that colored Spikes features, the master vampire laughed. "Well, look at the puppy with his new fangs! You know, I don't remember you being quite so verbose the last time you were cowering without your bottle blond at arm's length."

"What can I say? Knowing that you pose about as much trouble as a Dalek confronted with stairs makes me think I'm still ahead."

"Nice try whelp, but Angel already tried the 'infuriate me to the point of homicide' game this season. I can't kill you...yet, not before the guest of honor wakes up!" Spike pinched Xander's cheek and was a little put off by the strength that shone out of the lads eyes.

Xander took a moment a saw that the factory floor was full of vampires sitting at a table,and his heart sank when he saw everyone looking expectantly towards the assembled form of 5 of 6 wooden boxes that resembled a sarcophagus. All while Drusilla grinned madly and put the final box- the box from Buffy's party he saw with some despair- into it's slot Xander started straining against the ropes, praying to Janus, to Rao, to anyone listening to not let him die without a fight.

The seams that connected the boxes into the form of the Judge glowed briefly before emmiting a flash of light and a weak power blast that washed over the room. Xander felt a momentary wave of nausea as the light fell across his bound form, but a glint from the floor caught his eye. As Drusilla and Spike greeted the Judge into the 20th century, Xander saw a shard of glass on the floor and began to come up with the worst plan ever.

Buffy was distraught. Actually distraught was too subtle a term. Crazy sick with fear for Xander was more appropriate.

She and Angel had been ambushed at the docks and the vampires had gotten the arm and Xander from the signs of struggle near her mom's car.

As she and Angel ran through the side streets of Sunnydale towards the factory, _Damn Xander for having the keys in his pocket!_, Angel's words played over and over in her mind, feeling like a piece of a puzzle that had been part of her life since Halloween.

_"Any sign of Xander?"_

_"No, but there's tracks around the Jeep and they definitely were dragging something when they left..."_

_"Great. Just great, How could I let this happen?"_

_"Buffy, Xander knows how to defend himself, he's not as weak as you think."_

_Buffy appraised her boyfriend and his return to cryptic riddle guy. "Oh really? What do you know that I don't?" She said, reproach painting her words._

_Angel looked away at her tone. "I know that I can't smell any blood...which is lucky for the minions...there's no way they could have resisted."_

That statement spoke volumes of information that Buffy could see meant that her boyfriend and his supposed rival had been talking behind Buffy's back. They were both so dead when they finish saved the world.

As the Slayer and Angel climbed to the roof of the factory that they knew Spike and Dru used, Buffy couldn't help herself. "When I spoke to Xander over coffee he said that I'd be **one **of the first to know the whole story...can I assume that you already know more?

Angel sighed, _How is this the time or the place for this?_, "Buffy, you can assume whatever you like. Or you could just ask what you want to know. But I really think you should wait till later."

Buffy bit back her anger. _He's right...besides I'm just mis-directing here... _Her expression ratcheted back down to all business and in that way she softened towards her boyfriend. "Fine, but I want a full explanation later."

Liam shook his head, "Not my story to tell Buffy. I'll do what I can though, okay?"

Buffy nodded and turned her attention back to slipping into the roof entrance of the factory.

_Besides, _Liam thought, _you and I will have bigger problems between us than Xander when this is all over Buffy. _The ensouled vamp followed Buffy inside, worried about what he may find.

Janus found Mxyia on the factory floor, out of phase with the local reality, the teen fretting over Xander.

"He's in a tight spot," the god said casually, causing the imp to jump in surprise before her mood swung back towards fear and anger.

"A tight spot? A TIGHT SPOT?! Congrats McGurk, you get the Captain Obvious award! Help him!"

Janus sighed and watched as tears started to well in Mxyia's eyes. _She's so different from her predecessor...I like it. _"I know this looks bad," Janus said as he pulled the elfin teen into a hug, "but if he can get through this...well, then we'll know he's ready for everything else that might come his way."

Mxyia scowled and hit the now taller and younger Janus on the shoulder. "I don't care. Why have all the lines shut down? I should be able to see from here and it's as if it's all dark."

Janus looked at her surprised at her lack of knowledge, but humored the girl. "You honestly don't know?"

Mxyia glared and watched as time slowed at her whim, afraid to get to far ahead of the story. "I just asked you why! I don't know everything damn you, I'm not the old man!"

_This is an unexpected turn..._ Janus thought before pulling the girl kicking and screaming up a few levels of reality and allowing time to resume it's course, for better or for worse.

Xnader watched as the supposedly weak Judge sneered down at him, the teen still on his knees, his hands bound behind him.

The Judge had burned Dalton to ash a few moments prior and after catching it's breath the demon was drawn to Xander like a moth to a flame. Xnader looked up defiantly as the judge circled the teen almost appreciative in his appraisal of Xander.

"This one...he reeks of purity and hope. I see sunshine and diamonds all over him..."

"Yeah, we all just love him here too," Spike sneered, "Go ahead mate, tuck in. He wasn't originally on the menu but we figured you could use some appetizers before the main course."

"Indeed, my power will grow with his destruction...I haven't seen one as pure as this since I destroyed the avatar of Enki..."

The judge eagerly stretched out his massive armored hand towards Xander, and the teen tensed up for action, only to be distracted by Buffy's cry from the cat walk above.

"NO! Xander!"

Spike laughed cruelly but failed to notice Dru shaking as if having a fit, her eyes vacant and her face fearful at this strange turn of events. "Too soon, too soon..." she moaned and fell to the floor, unable to move but seeing everything happen.

Seizing the moment Xander slammed his face down on the floor and laid open a cheek on the shard of glass.

Every vampire in the room except for Angel and Drusilla suddenly tensed and went into their true face as the intoxicating aroma of Xander's alien blood filled the room. While Liam and Xander had avoided doing any experiments with the possible potency of Xander's blood, it was safe to say that since Thanksgiving it had become even more noticeable to vamps when it hit the air outside of Xander's flesh.

The Judge was momentarily pushed aside as the assembled leeches in the room flooded past him to get at Xander, but the blue skinned demon himself was overcome with the desire to destroy this human boy as quickly as possible.

Xander threw himself backwards and had a second of amusement as the vampires rushed to the puddle of blood on the floor like over eager cats to spilled cream. Even as the first of the weaker minions vanished in a blast of micro ash, the stronger of the vampires turned on each other, completely disregarding the source of the blood and their fangs blackening and crumbling in their mouths.

Except for Spike. Spike smelled the blood on the boy and launched himself from the wheelchair with a surge of blood lust. Almost flying across the distance between Xander and himself, Spike cleared the Judge and started to rip into Xander's shoulders and back, clinging to the boy with his arms, useless legs forgotten.

Xander cried out as Spike began to feed messily but focused on Liam and Buffy, hoping that they would use the distraction to escape. Then the Judge battered his way to Xander and slammed his hand onto the boys chest.

At first Xander couldn't identify the feeling coursing through him...except that it hurt. It was pain worse that the vicious knives that were Spike's fangs, worse that Tony Harris' belt buckle cracking into his back. It felt as if a deep furnace of flame had been let loose inside of him and was burning away all that he was.

Xander hardly noticed when Spike exploded, the foul vampire wiped out of existence by the blood of one that he had considered so weak. Xander ignored Drusilla's wild shrieks of grief as she saw her reason for being erased by his uncontrollable appetite and her mind vanishing as quickly as Spike's body. Xander ignored everything but the fire inside as it burned what was left of his humanity away from him, the fires so like that of the sun in the sky.

Liam watched as Spike burst like a dirty soap bubble and energy raced over Xander's form, starting from the Judge's gauntlet. He watched as the Judge's look of triumph began to falter and turn to a look of confusion, the power within his starting to ramp up, trying to compensate for whatever was happening across the circuit completed by his touch to Xander's chest.

The Judge tried to pull his hand from the human (was he human?) filth's chest and was shocked when his victim grabbed on to his arm and maintained the connection, the ropes that bound the youth having burned away at the initial contact of the Judge. Most astonishing were the boy's eyes. A dark brown that started to burn with the fire of the Judge, the demon watched in fear as the brown burned away, revealing unearthly blue irises, brighter than any the world had seen before.

From the point of contact with Xander, arcs of white lightning began to shoot across the factory, joining the storm raging outside and blowing the old masonry and steel work apart. The Judge began to falter in his strength, his legs shaking, his own arms burning as the feedback became stronger and stronger.

Xander felt strength flood through him and brief surprise as the gash on his cheek healed instantly, no hint of a scar to be found. He didn't even realize that he had grabbed the Judge's arm with his own and marveled at how weak the demon seemed suddenly. The energy storm worsened as the power of the Judge tried to compensate for this being and reached out to the ambient energy of the Hellmouth and converted it for the purpose of destroying this simple _boy._

Buffy watched in shock as the vampires burned away and her friend stood against the Judge, flashes of light filling the air, blowing out the windows of the factory. As Angel grabbed her and they began to run from the rapidly crumbling factory. From behind her a corona of shifting colors exploded from Xander, rich royal blue and vibrant red shot with gold. She spared one last glance back, afraid for Xander being at the heart of the maelstrom but still overcome with awe at the turn of events.

Xander's head was filled with song, he could hear horns blaring a triumphant call of glory, and the air was full of color. The Judge was screaming, all his time in the realm of man leaving him unprepared for whatever was happening now, the strength that saved him from "any weapon forged" being of no use now. As the familiar colors of the house of El flaring from Xander's body merged into a blaze of white and the factory became impossible to see for it, Xander thought he heard a voice in his ear...the voice of his father, of Kal-El's father speaking words of encouragement and of wisdom, in a tone tempered with a sorrowful love.

The forces that empowered the Judge finally had enough of this strange boy and the reaction the dark champion had started by touching him. In the blinding microcosm of power the two existed in, the Judge's body became transparent, save for his onyx bones which shattered as the feedback became too much and the resultant explosion consumed the long unused factory, one last blaze of light filling the stormy night in Sunnydale on Buffy Summer's 17th birthday.

Buffy was in a state of minor shock when Angel took her to his basement apartment, the events of the day had become too much for her to take and she desperately clung to Angel alternating between giddiness that they had survived and escaped, to deep sorrow at the though that Xander was dead, consumed in the strange explosion.

"Buffy," Angel's voice cut into her thoughts. "Buffy, drink this. It'll will help." Buffy grimaced as she drank from the tumbler and the hot mossy taste of Irish whiskey filled her throat.

Liam took a long pull off of the 50 year old bottle himself, fighting tears at what had happened to Xander as well. He marveled over how in such a short time the boy had become a trusted ally in this life, someone the vampire had started to think of as kin.

Directing Buffy to the closet, Angel stripped her and got her into some dry clothes, a distant part of him thinking of how this morning he would have never dreamed of being in this state with his Slayer, and of how it all meant nothing now that Giles and Jenny had told him of the curse upon Angelus.

Buffy numbly let Angel dress her and then snuggled into him as her carried her to his bed and wrapped blanket around her before he pulled away to sit at the bedside and kill the bottle of whisky in honor of Xander Kent and his sacrifice.

From the still smoking rubble of the factory, a figure emerged.

Clothes a ruin, hair disheveled, the figure wandered the storm swept streets, managing to avoid the always too late emergency crews of Sunnydale rushing to the scene of the factory explosion. A hand shattered the glass of a store front and grabbed the clothes within, feeling self conscious in her near nakedness.

She avoided mirrors as they wouldn't matter anyways and made her way into the sewers finally finding her way to an unused mansion on the edge of town. Entering the place freely, the brunette appreciated the angles and lines of the place, the filth and the vermin scuttling behind the walls.

The Powers That Be saw this woman shaped thing and marveled at that damnable boy yet again. As she wandered the mansion, the woman who used to be Drusilla looked out over Sunnydale with the eyes of the newly created, eyes free of any madness but full of darkness and hunger.

In a plain voice, the faintest hint of the Queen's English coloring her accent, she said but one thing,

"And now it's Lillith's turn to play."

TBC...

_A/N #2: And there you have the Earthbound-verse version of "Surprise" . Hope Y'all like it and I promise that the next chapter shouldn't be too far off._ _You might notice that I use Angel and Liam interchangeably, leaning on Liam, that's because of which character is speaking to him at that moment as Xander and Angel are so far the only ones who think of him as Liam now. I shouldn't think that the next few updates should be as monster sized as this one, but I don't know these days...I'm really starting to love this fic again and hope that you all are finding it a bit easier to read as time goes by. Any observations or comments are always appreciated, as is any CONSTRUCTIVE feedback...no offense to the flames but I don't really appreciate them. Of course, if I can't handle criticism maybe I shouldn't post. :D Oh, for the sharp eyed of you you might have caught the Nancy Doyle reference- I've tried to use her elsewhere and was accused of making up characters but she was in two eps of Buffy, You'll know when I try to create an OC! Thanks again, see everyone soon. Happy Thanksgiving!_


	7. Chapter 7

"Earthbound: Chapter 7 Innocence" 

Disclaimer in first chapter

_A/N: So begins the fic in earnest, starting with the fallout from Janus and Mxyia's actions..._

Buffy awoke the morning after her birthday and for one moment forgot all that had occurred the night before. Part of the Slayer was caught up in the fact that she was in an unfamiliar bed and her senses automatically told her that she was in Angel's apartment.

Realization slammed into her psyche mercilessly: her mother had found out she was the Slayer, The Judge had been assembled and blown apart, Spike had apparently been vaporized by something in Xander-

Xander.

Tears, hot and bitter, rushed to Buffy as the realization that her best guy friend had gone up with the factory in that strange explosion the night before. The image of him in the center of the blaze of power burned in her mind, her Slayer sense for the mystical having gone wild when the light show began.

Creeping stealthily to where Angel had laid her clothes out to dry, Buffy spared a brief thought to the tender way Angel had taken care of her last night, even when his own grief was apparent beneath his usually stoic facade. Turning her attention to her undead boyfriend, Buffy saw that he was deeply asleep, a look of sadness etched into his features. Placing a tender kiss on his brow Buffy did the only thing that her mind would allow her to do at this moment in time.

She fled.

Above the physical levels of reality, a meeting of the "Powers That Be" was occurring.

Janus sat calmly before his former peers, calmly watching as their varied physical forms expressed outrage over the events that had created Xander Kent.

Some appeared as pillars of sentient flame, other gods appropriated the form of sunlight, others still looked like a particularly violent cross between a grizzly bear and a piranha.

Almost all were foaming at the mouth over Janus' unexpected return to some kind of power.

Mxyia had been dragged along for the ride, kicking and screaming over the fact that Janus had let Xander perish in the factory. She now sat to his right, seething at the accusations being flung about the specially created cosmos the beings had formed as a "meeting room" of sorts.

As beings from all different strata argued about the implications of Xander's impact upon the plans of the Powers, Janus and Mxyia conferred quietly.

"This is ridiculous, how could you leave him down there? I should have never allowed you to take me out of there!"

"I'm sorry that you think I did something wrong-

"Which means you're not really sorry at all."

"But I did the most responsible thing that could be done at that moment in time Mxyia. Xander has been creating a more powerful Chaos field with every step that he takes these days...that moment was a pivotal point in his existence. You should know this."

"Why? Why are you so surprised that I don't know everything?" The silver haired teens emerald eyes literally flashing with anger.

_Because it may mean the you aren't who either of us thought you were kid_, Janus thought with concern.

"Mxyia, is there anything you want to tell me? Anything that could help us? You were the one with me when this chain of events started into motion."

Mxyia looked angry and nervous before brushing his question off.

"Nope, can't think of a thing McGurk."

"Before we left Xander, you said something about 'not being the old man' and you didn't understand why our ability to see the potential future had shut down. What is going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing is going on! Listen, I seem to be having some problems with what happened a few months ago. I haven't gone back to the 5th dimension very much because something is off with my powers okay? As I recall, you seem to be going through some changes yourself lately- since when is that a crime?"

"It's not, I'm just concerned-"

_COME JANUS, LET US SPEAK OF YOUR CRIMES AS OF LATE._

Joyce Summers sat in her living room, the third cup of coffee that she had allowed to get cold sitting before her.

Last night had been one of the worst nights in her life. It had also been one of the best. Her daughter, her only little girl had somehow become a superhero at some point and now saved the world from darkness, apparently nightly with no time off for good behavior. It had swelled the elder Summers woman's heart with pride when she realized the gravity of her daughter's calling, and how silently (though foolishly) her Buffy had gone to work. She mentally chided Buffy for trying to go it alone, but then with horror (and with tears) she recalled that she hadn't really given Buffy a choice, seeing as she and Hank had committed Buffy for a short time the first time Buffy had obviously been struggling with her calling.

Finding out that all the nightmares that we relegate to childhood were real had given Joyce a nasty turn, but she had taken her fear and turned it into concern for her daughter instead. She had screamed at Mr. Giles for a fair chunk of time as a coping mechanism after the party came to it's abrupt end. The audacity of the man! Keeping something like this from her, using her daughter as some sort of a weapon! To his very slim credit, the Watcher had seemed to rally very strongly at accusations of not caring for Buffy's well being.

Slowly, the winter sun started to peek over the valley's edge and the air began to lighten around Joyce. Giles had warned her that Buffy could be gone for the night, depending on if they met any resistance to leaving with the Judges arm, but he had also said that Buffy was extremely competent in the face of adversity and for Joyce not to worry too much.

Now if she could just convince herself that the man wasn't a hideous liar, she might be able to quell the feeling that she would never see her daughter again.

Mxyia had gotten to her limits in terms of bullshit. She was pacing back and forth as Janus argued with the assembled Powers over Xander.

_THE BOY IS BEYOND DANGEROUS TO US JANUS. MORESO THAN THAT SLIP OF AN IMP ASSISTING YOU AS OF LATE._

"I really don't see what my friend here has to do with-"

"Excuse me for butting in, but what did Xander ever do to you? It's not like he could punch through the idiotically tissue thin walls of your reality!"

Mxyia felt as if she were a bug under a microscope as the stuffy pantheon examined her.

_YOUR IMPERTINENCE IS NEITHER AMUSING OR NECCESARY FIFTH DIMENSIONER. YOU WOULD DO WELL TO HOLD YOUR TOUNGE UNTIL WE MOVE OUR ATTENTIONS TO YOU._

Janus pulled Mxyia back and shot a warning look at her.

"Forgive her, my esteemed former colleagues..."

_NO._

Mxyia felt Janus stiffen and tried to read his mood.

_IN FACT WE BLAME IT FOR CAUSING THIS MESS. IF YOU HAD DONE WHAT WE HAD URGED YOU TO DO AND SMOTE THE BOY ON HALLOWEEN INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO IT, NONE OF US WOULD BE IN THIS SITUATION._

The full force of a the assembled entities anger started to fall upon Mxyia, and for the first time since her inception, she began to feel the fear of a being that was outclassed.

Janus could see which way the wind was blowing and jumped back into the fray, "Please! Let's not do anything hasty here! I will assume any-"

_STILL YOUR MOUTH GODLING._

Mxyia watched as a wave of crimson energy exploded from the palm of Apollo and bind Janus. She vainly tried to counter the binding but found her own powers ineffective.

"Stop it! How can you do this? He used to be one of you!"

_FEAR NOT HIS FATE IMP. WE SHALL SHOW OUR FORMER BROTHER THE APPROPRIATE RESPECT. YOU HOWEVER..._

Mxyia floated upward, caught in an energy field that she couldn't escape and seemed ominously familiar.

Purple and green energy crackled in the air around her and motes of power began to coalesce into a mirror. Mxyia began to thrash, pouring everything she had into escaping as she suddenly had an inkling of what was about to occur.

The mirror solidified and instead of her own image, the image of her former self smiled evilly back at her, dusting off his bowler.

"Heya doll. Thought you could get rid of me forever huh?"

_MXYZPTLK, DO YOU ACCEPT THAT YOUR ATTEMPT AT MISCHIEF OUTSIDE OF YOUR BOUNDRIES WAS ILL ADVISED?_

"Oh yes your honors, I can see that I was out of line when I came here on Halloween. I've definitely learned my lesson."

_VERY WELL, WE BELIEVE THAT WATCHING THIS NYMPH HAVE HER BEING IN THE MULTIVERSE WAS ENOUGH PUNISHMENT FOR NOW. YOU MAY EMERGE FROM YOUR PRISON._

Mxyzptlk put his palm up to the surface of the mirror and began to push through the surface, "Only had to spend a relatively agonizing amount of time learning that lesson too"

_ STAY YOUR WHINING MOUTH. BE GLAD THAT WE DID NOT INCREASE YOUR PERCEPTION OF TIME A MILLION TIMES OVER INSTEAD OF THE TEN THOUSAND WE GRANTED TO YOU.  
MXYIA, FOR YOUR PART IN DISRUPTING OUR CHANNELS OF POWER IN THIS UNIVERSE, FOR DISRUPTING OUR PLANS AND FOR INTRUDING WHERE YOU ARE NOT WANTED, WE HAVE COME UP WITH A PUNISHMENT BEFITTING OF ONE SO ENAMORED OF HUMANITY._

Mxyzptlk fully emerged from the mirror and bowed to the assembled Powers. Floating over to the bound Mxyia he sized her up quietly. The diminutive imp sneered at his teen girl counterpart.

"You disgust me."

Viciously, he sunk his hand into Mxyia's chest and began taking back all of the power that she had retained when she came into being due to his miscalculation.

Janus roared angrily as he watched the girl being stripped of her powers by his former ally. The time that had passed for him since Halloween had changed him greatly, his link to Xander and Xander's belief that the god had an inherent core of goodness having changed Janus' outlook on the multiverse. While he had his suspicions that Mxyia wasn't who he thought she was far too late in the game, he had never suspected her of any wrong doing. She didn't deserve what was happening now and he certainly didn't care for the look of his former "friend" now that he had returned to power.

All Mxyia could feel was pain, pain as her powers were stripped away, agony as she entered a new state of being. As the last vestiges of her extra-dimensional powers went back to their initial owner, she sank weakly to the ground.

She dimly heard her "father" cackling with delight as his reality bending powers were returned to the full potential.

_YOUR PART IN THIS HEARING IS DONE IMP. GO NOW AND DO NOT RETURN TO THIS DIMENSION UNLESS SUMMONED._

With only minor contempt in his eyes, the original mischievous Mxyzptlk doffed his cap and vanished in a flash of light, not even looking at Mxyia's battered form.

Janus looked at the girl with sadness in his heart, wishing that all of this could have been avoided, knowing that his own influence was to blame. Fragile new life, abused for her unwitting part in Janus's new existence.

Janus watched as a familiar goddess stepped forward from the group of Powers and laid her hand on the barely conscious girls wrist.

"You know that I don't agree with the way this hearing has been done! You will allow me this boon in her sentencing!" The goddess called out.

_YOUR FORMER STATUS GRANTS YOU THIS RIGHT. DO WHAT YOU WILL BEFORE OUR FINAL VERDICT IS HANDED DOWN._

Mxyia felt something strange happening to her, but couldn't muster the energy to see who was cradling her body. She felt a tingling in her left wrist and wondered what else they could inflict on her.

"I have granted her my blessing, do what you will." The goddess said mournfully, releasing the girl from her embrace.

Janus managed to shunt enough power to free his mouth from it's mystical bindings.

"Stop this! She's a child! Blame Mxyzptlk if you must blame anyone! His mischef resulted in her creation!"

_BUT HE WOULD HAVE NOT ENCOURAGED THE HUMAN BOY'S TRANFORMATION AS SHE DID. YOU WILL NOW BE QUIET. WE HAVE JUDGED._

To his dismay, Janus could only watch helplessly as power formed around Mxyia's prone body and he held back tears as the girl faded slowly from sight. His grief was tempered only by the fact that he had not played his ace, saddened that the girl was beyond his reach and the knowledge that would soothe her pain.

As his bindings loosened, Janus spat at his condemners. "For me? Pain and suffering beyond mortal imagining? A roommate for Sisyphus perhaps?"

_DO NOT TEMPT US JANUS. YOUR ACTIVITIES OF LATE SHOW THAT YOU HAVE NEVER LEARNED YOUR PLACE THAT WE ALLOWED YOU TO HAVE IN THIS WORLD. BEING CHAINED TO A ROCK IS ONE OF THE LEAST CREATIVE THINGS WE COULD DO._

"True enough. So sorry for not knowing my place and attempting to live as opposed to existing."

Enki pursed it's lips. "Even though your pet project avenged my avatar of old by destroying the Judge, I agree that your actions have shown you to be dangerous. You're creating too much turbulence old friend. Bad for business." with a number of raised hands, Janus felt his godhood removed.

"Ahh, so it begins...nice appetizer, very piquant. That was because of Spike wasn't it?" he stalled wryly dumping a huge chunk of power back towards Xander's resting place before the hangman took it from him.

An unfamiliar voice chipped in, "No, this is," and Janus screamed as his immortality vanished in the beat of the heart he'd never had until now.

Falling to his knees and gasping at the sensation of having an engine made of flesh powering his movement, Janus looked up at his attacker.

"Well, well," the former god gasped out, "I should have known that one of you would have been here."

The Wolf of the infamous firm grinned down toothily. "Of course, can't have a meeting without all of the players represented. Come now old boy, you should know better than to take our toys from us like that. My firm had plans for that vampire. Now they're all bollocks and we're having to quarantine this dimension from the rest of the firm because it's gone off the rails so badly."

Janus gaped at the crowd of Powers, "You're leaving them alone?"

_NO, WE'RE SIMPLY APPROACHING THINGS DIFFERENTLY. NOT THAT YOU'LL BE ALLOWED TO SEE THE SCALES MOVING FROM WHERE YOU'LL BE._

The Wolf grinned, "Congratulations bucko, you've just been banished."

Buffy crept into her house, hoping that yesterday had been a bad dream, knowing that God wasn't that fair.

"Morning Buffy."

Buffy stifled a little shriek as Joyce came from the kitchen with a mug of coffee for Buffy.

"Lots of cream, lots of sugar, can I make you some breakfast?"

"Uhh...Well..." why did she feel like the cow surrounded by pirhanas?

"I only ask if you want something to eat because your going to need a lot of energy to explain where you've been all night and where you've left my Jeep dear."

Buffy sighed. At least some things stayed sort of the same.

After a shower and coffee, Buffy still hadn't come up with a good reason why her Mom's car was still at the docks. Despite her Mom being understanding lady all of the sudden, could she really tell her that Xander had the keys before he was killed in a multi colored blaze of light? Just thinking about it caused Buffy's chest to contract with pain, how could she possibly explain this to others?

"I take it you were in so late because of what happened over at the old factory on the edge of town?"

Buffy bit her lip glad for the opening, "Yeah, there was a situation with a bunch of vamps and god could this be any weirder? Are you sure you want to do the listening mom thing? Because I'd be okay if you didn't."

"Buffy, I'm still your mother. Whether or not you're the Slayer doesn't stop me from wanting to be here for you as well as making sure that you're not abusing any part of your responsibility. I can see now that there have been times in the past that you've had to use school as an excuse for demons, but I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure that you can't reverse that situation. The paper this morning said that some old gas lines had been activated by hooligans and then they exploded taking the 'gang members' up with it. I assume this is patently false?"

The whole time Joyce had been speaking she had never raised her voice or quit making pancakes. Buffy felt in awe of her mother, despite the possible harsh restrictions that could result from this new mindset.

"Wow, I guess having the blinders taken off allows you to cut through the terrible lies the officials in this town come up with? Go Mom."

Joyce laughed. "At about three in the morning I started kicking myself over believing that gang members on PCP attacked your school for the Parent Teacher night."

Buffy felt a laugh break through the tension in her chest and gave her mom a hug. Tucking into a stack of flapjacks she started attempting to come up with an explanation and was as surprised as Joyce when the doorbell rang so early in the morning. Of course no one was more surprised than Buffy when she opened the door and saw the brightest blue eyes she'd ever seen staring into to hers, a smirk on their owners face.

Joyce, for her part, was quick to go to Buffy when the girl fainted seconds later.

Xander, for his part, just hoped there were more flapjacks.

_approximately one hour earlier_

He awoke with a start, unsure as to where he was.

The sun was almost up, he knew. How he knew he wasn't sure, but he recalled that Clark had always had an uncanny sense of that sort of thing.

Xander marveled at the fact that he was alive. He remembered the fight, the Judge reaching out for him, after that it got a little fuzzy. He started to feel around to the edges of where ever he was and found that he was in a rough sphere of smooth earth, about seven feet across.

Taking further stock he noticed that his clothes were in shambles but he wasn't particularly cold. The air wasn't stale and he didn't have any injuries.

A spark of light descended from the ceiling and hovered towards the edge of his little oubliette. Silvery light began to cover the walls of the sphere , not unlike the reflection of the sun off the water. A circle of energy traced itself out in front of Xander and an unfamiliar face with a familiar smile and eyes appeared in the circle.

"Janus."

"Hello Xander. Hope you're comfortable, despite being buried alive,"

"Well actually-"

"Unfortunately this isn't a two way call kid. In fact this is my last gift to you for now, at least it isn't a VHS right?"

Xander grinned. He wasn't sure who got their sense of humor from whom, but he hoped that the god had gotten his sense of humor from the mortal side of the equation.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions about where you're headed kid, but neither I nor Mxyia will be able to help you as we've both been pulled from the board for now. I can say that the good news is that you'll be free of any destiny crap that the powers throw at you personally. You may have to encourage your friends to buck the system as well, but that shouldn't be a problem for someone of your talents."

Ah, Xander thought, here comes the other shoe, dropping in 3,2,1...

'The bad news is that you don't have a lot of friends up in the clouds right now. You're a x-factor in their plans and they only want balance and to keep the game going for as long as possible. Lots of things are going to come at you before we get a chance to speak again kid, some good, most bad. You and friends are going to have a wild ride, maybe even shake things up, the fact is that I don't know. Neither do they which is what most of the problem is. I know our relationship has been short and mostly of a expository nature, but you should know that I've been looking out for you. Whatever happened to us on Halloween spread throughout the Multiverse and I'm not sure how it's going to affect you in the long run. Whatever the case, you've got something that other Kal-El's have never had, besides a sense of self-awareness, but I'll let you discover that on your own-"

The image of Janus started to sputter and crackle, the light in the room fading with it.

"-so here's my last bit of help kid, I recommend opening the package after you figure out how to get above ground again."

And with that, the light formed a box wrapped in butcher paper and plunged Xander back into the dark.

Xander sighed. He wasn't sure what to do. For 5 minutes now he'd been trying anything to figure out where he was and how to get out.

Strangely he kept thinking of how Clark would have handled this situation. Clark had actually been buried twice. Once in Peru and once in the arctic when he'd been traveling north to find a suitable spot for the site of the fortress. Both had been before he'd put on the suit and he'd not been able to figure out how to fly then.

Xander had jokingly tried to use X-ray vision and super hearing, hoping vainly that whatever had happened at the factory had turned those on. He'd remembered more of it all, remembered seeing the Judge's look of triumph turn to one of terror. Remembered the music that had filled his ears, the sound but not the words of Jor-El's voice. Finally, out of sheer frustration Xander poked at the wall of his earthen cell.

To his surprise the concrete strength wall crumbled as if hit by a pneumatic hammer.

If there had been any light, Xander knew that the look on his face as he regarded his finger would have been priceless. Weighing his options after he was done marveling over the improbability of the simplistic solution, Xander realized that he didn't really have anything to lose by seeing if he could punch his way out of this.

Cocking his arm and setting his jaw against probable discomfort in the near future, Xander let loose with a punch.

Emergency crews in Sunnydale had long ago learned to be in and out of weird scenes without hanging around. Cops rarely posted guards and Firemen knew when a fire was or wasn't "normal" and whether or not to let it burn(usually the Mayor's office was helpful in such matters). This was very handy as no one was around the factory ruins to see the earth move when Xander landed his first Solar powered punch.

A veteran construction man, had one been around, would have appreciated the sheer force it took to move a five by five foot section of earth that was about fifteen feet in depth, maybe enough to offer the resident of the newly formed hole a job on the spot.

He probably wouldn't have been surprised when an individual with that much power declined said offer, but he would have enjoyed how polite Xander would have been about the whole thing.

Xander stood at the bottom of the pit and grinned the grin of someone who has finally been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. As mud and rainwater trickled down the edges of the pit Xander accessed the knowledge that strength has a host of varied applications and jumped from the hole he had created. Squelching in the muddy ruins of the factory, Xander thanked Clark's memories for allowing him a measure of control over his newfound power. Otherwise that first jump would have probably had him jumping over to the next town.

Finding a quiet pile of rubble, Xander opened the box Janus had sent to him and was surprised when a flash of light left him bathed and clothed. The Kryptonian teen let out a happy yelp as he realized that the clothes he was wearing were the clothes that he wore in the farmhouse meeting with Janus and Mxyia; Ultramarine blue flannel, white t-shirt, his( and Clark's) favorite jeans, and sturdy broke in work boots. His wallet was found in his back pocket and Mrs. Summers' spare keys were in his front.

Ducking under the caution tape, Xander set off towards the docks, wondering where Buffy and Angel were, hoping the two were alright. Trying for super speed, Xander was only slightly disappointed when the world didn't become a blur, but happily accepted the fact that he'd been running in a full sprint with no signs of fatigue or sweating for at least half a mile.

Back at the Summers house, after everyone had settled into Xander's unexpected morning arrival, Xander started on his second stack and was very gracious when Joyce added some frozen blueberries into the remainder of the pancake batter.

Buffy sat in the kitchen cautiously, eying Xander with one part caution and one part optimism.

"Feeling better Buff?" Xander asked, his face full of care.

"Yeah...Just a little worn out from last night I suppose. Mom would you excuse us?" Buffy grabbed Xander's arm and tried to pull him out to the back deck and found that Slayer strength wasn't working quite like it used to.

Xander finished the bite he'd taken and thanked Joyce again for breakfast, "I promise I'll be right back for those blueberry ones, I can't believe you remembered that they're my fav Mrs. S."

"Xander, considering that you eat the way you do when you stop by, you shouldn't be surprised that I know to stock double of your favorite anything around here."

Xander blushed at Joyce's good humored ribbing and joined Buffy out on the back porch, regaining his composure just in time for Buffy to poke him in the chest, scowling.

"Okay Mister, what's the deal? I saw what I saw last night and what I saw was a big explosion that no _human_ I've ever met could make it through."

Xander uttered a little sigh. He knew that he'd have to deal with this from Buffy every time he did something outside of the norm, but he hoped that it would get easier.

"Well Buffy, we've already established that something Hellmouthy has happened to me, and that I'd tell you what was going on when I knew more. Do we really-"

"Yeah I think we do," Buffy said, he eyes beginning to fill with tears, "I thought you were dead Xander. So did Angel. You didn't see us last night when it was all we could do just getting out of the rain. I don't know what you and he have been up to but you've obviously become friends with him, thanks for sharing that by the way."

Xander watched as Buffy's indignant feelings helped stop the tears. Moving close to the Slayer he bit back a smile as she had to look up much higher than she did a few months back to see into his face.

"Buffy, I want you to look into my eyes and tell me what you see."

Buffy looked into Xander's eyes, marveling over the unearthly blue color that they had become after last night. She consciously had to stop her hand from caressing his cheek as she saw all the humor and mirth of one of her best friends still in place behind his eyes. Her senses still told her that non-human or not, the young man before her was indeed her Xander shaped friend.

"I see you Xander. You and something else. It's strong and true and it scares me a little because it's seems so serious in contrast to your eyes when they were the deep brown they used to be."

"What do you mean 'used to be brown' Buffy?"

Now it was Buffy's turn to sigh as she steered Xander towards a small feng shui mirror her mother kept out here. "And you wonder why I was so suspicions of you you big ox, take a moment to figure this out would you?"

Xander gaped as the eyes he saw in the mirror were ones that he was used to seeing in another life completely, usually behind glasses which helped cut some of the color and drew attention away from his face.

Buffy watched as a smile slowly crawled across Xander's face and was taken by surprise when she was swept up in a hug and spun around joyously.

Buffy was hit by a stream of babble that neared Willow levels on a good day to her amusement.

"Whoa! Time out Xander! What is going on?"

Xander stopped and ran his hands through his hair, taking a deep breath. Looking into the kitchen he saw Joyce going through the coupons in the paper. He decided that he knew as much as he was going to right now, therefore if he was to be true to his word, now was the time to tell Buffy.

Poking his head into the kitchen through the door Xander almost fooled himself into not hearing the quiver of excitement and fear in his voice.

"Hey Joyce, would it be alright if I got the pancakes to go? Buffy and I have to go somewhere before school today and I probably won't have time to get back them before then."

Joyce smiled and pointed to the wrapped paper plate she had set on the counter, "I saw that we were getting close to when Buffy usually goes to school to do the homework she thinks I know she didn't do the night before, so I wrapped them already."

Xander winked and grabbed Buffy's school bag along with the plate.

Out on the porch, Xander gave Buffy her bag and the plate. "Hold these would'ya Buff?"

"Care to explain Xander?"

Buffy found herself cradled in Xander's arms.

"Do you trust me Buffy?" Xander intoned seriously, the humor gone, prompting Buffy to take a moment before responding in kind.

"With my life."

Xander's face lit up at her trust and took a moment to orient himself.

Buffy barely realized they'd left the ground as Xander pulled her close and jumped from the Summers back yard into the early morning sky.

_A/N #2: Don't mistake jumping for something else. :)_


	8. Chapter 8

"Earthbound: Chapter 8 Innocence pt. 2"

Disclaimer: I do not own Superman or Buffy or any of the properties represented herein. I am in no way attempting to or making any money off of what I write, but am only trying to create unique situations for the characters to explore, occasionally putting my own creative spin on how I see things. Thank you for your time.

_A/N: Upped the rating to FR15 for language, and you've been warned about a slight amount of fan service being paid in the middle part of the fic._

The early morning sky over Sunnydale generally didn't see much of interest. Some birds, maybe a demon from time to time(very rarely), usually the sky was cloudy occasionally and rained just enough to keep things nice and healthy, mainly due to the fact that this particular mayor's office took it's campaign promises very seriously.

Due to this state of affairs, no one was looking up as a six foot two inch young man jump twelve miles from the residential district to the undeveloped hills above town. This was useful because this way no one could hear the gleeful shriek of the five foot five inch blond Slayer in the aforementioned man's secure arms.

Xander landed and was pleased that he didn't crater the ground like the first time Clark had tried that trick. Then again, Clark hadn't had the precious cargo that Xander had been carrying.

"Okay, that wasn't the explanation I was looking for but we are SO doing that again Xander! That was incredible!" Buffy shouted, her eyes full of energy to match the giant grin on her face.

Xander blushed a bit at the praise, mostly he was glad that she hadn't freaked out halfway through the jump. "So it's safe to say that you're over your fear of heights then?"

"Oh hell no," The Slayer chirped, "you just sprung that on me in such a way that it didn't catch up with me till, oh, five hours from now. I like to think of it as delayed Slayer awesome reaction to paralyzing fear."

Xander laughed. "So still no roller coasters then."

"Xander, Xander...you and Willow will have a very enthusiastic bag holder the next time you guys go to Knott's scary farm, but I will never get on one of those coasters." Buffy tore her eyes away from the town that was still wrapped in some patches of fog and saw Xander, bathed in the sunlight, his eyes closed as he seemed to absorb the glow.

As with yesterday at the coffee shop, Buffy was struck by the difference in the boy that had occurred in the past few months. Besides his new demeanor his hair had begun to grow out long and wavy, and while he had never had what she considered a "soft" profile, small changes had occurred across his face, sharpening his features into an almost regal face. He'd shot up a few inches to over six feet in height and his body was lean and muscled tightly, not bulky at all but powerful all the same. Xander opened his eyes and turned those amazing "new" blue eyes on Buffy's face.

"So Buff, what should we talk about?"

Buffy playfully hit Xander's shoulder and yelped.

"What the hell Xand? What happened last night? You get captured, which I so don't buy now that I've just about broken my hand on your arm, and then the vamps and Angel goes back to being cryptic broody guy when we were coming to save you, plus the Judge got exploded without any of the world ending stuff..."

"Well, in that order: I went through a transformation of sorts, I was captured while you and Bats were saying good-bye and I didn't have the strength you've seen then, the vamps exploded because my blood is super toxic to them, Liam was keeping my secret, and the Judge miscalculated just how special he was. Now that you're up to speed, shall we go to school?"

Buffy responded with a near passable impression of Willow's resolve face and didn't say a word.

Xander looked skyward and sighed, "I knew it wouldn't be that easy..."

"You know it never is."

"Okay Buffy here we go. Would you say that I'm roughly as powerful as a locomotive?"

"Who even says locomotive these days?"

"It's for illustrative purposes Summers, work with me here."

"Sure."

"Okay Buffy, from what you just experienced, would you also say that I can leap a tall building in a single bound?"

Buffy's memories of Halloween suddenly rushed to the front of her mind and she could see Xander's face framed by a pair of glasses.

"Oh shit."

Xander wanly clapped his hands for his friend who obviously just put the pieces together. "I guess us resolving our "interesting issues" just got a lot easier, huh?"

Buffy just stared at Xander as if he was going to fly away and never come back. "You're Superman." The Slayer stated cautiously.

Xander smiled, "Well not yet Buffy. Maybe never depending on this dimension and what not...I'm not really sure how this is going to work. From what I've deduced though, the Judge's power somehow got turned around on him and super charged my cells, those are the cells that have been working slowly since Halloween to turn me into a full blooded Kryptonian. At this point, and I haven't had more than a few hours of being like this, I'm not totally sure of my power levels. I know that I have Clark Kent's memories on his relative power levels at this time in his life, but we've had a _very_ different development cycle so I don't know how much I can trust that."

Buffy continued to observe Xander, her face carefully not betraying her thoughts. "So is it scary for you?" she asked in a small voice.

Xander almost cried about that being Buffy's first real question to him. "The only thing I'm scared of is losing my friends because they think I'm a freak."

"Well I certainly can't understand that." Buffy said dryly.

Xander laughed, the moment becoming lighter again. "This wasn't something I was comfortable sharing with you because I thought that you would try to fix me or something, that you'd think I was demonic or dangerous."

"So that was why you pulled away from Willow and me."

"Some, yes. Part of it was that, another part of it was that I need time to assimilate all of this, and to work through my feelings for you and Willow."

"So you mostly thought that if I found out about when it happened that I'd go all Slayer on you and try to exorcise you?"

"Sorry to say it but yeah, I did."

Buffy blew out a big breath that flipped her hair up. "Sadly, I think you'd have been right- at least back in November."

Xander just nodded with pleasure at Buffy's honesty.

"But I've watched you for the past two plus months Xand, I've seen you change and become this fusion of you and Clark Kent...I like it. I know you like it, hell, most of Sunnydale High likes it, even if they aren't quite sure what to do with you yet," the two friends laughed and scattered the birds, "one thing I did learn in the last few months is that I'm not your boss though- and that was driven home last night when I saw you being attacked by the Judge along with every vamp in the factory. You've made a choice to join the fight and I can't really be mad or scared of you just because you've gotten the tools to make a difference. I almost lost you Xander, I'm not going to do something that puts either of us in that place, ever again if I can help it."

Xander absorbed Buffy's speech and could hardly believe where they'd come to. Sometimes he was haunted by the few flashes of the other future that could have been and he instinctively knew that no matter what, this was the better way.

"Thank you Buffy. It means a lot that you can see what I'm becoming and that you trust me to handle this responsibly."

"Well, I figure I'd better play nice since you just crushed that rock into dust with your hands and I'm all out of kryptomite."

"You're all heart Buff. It's krypto-nite, by the way."

"Whatever. C'mon Superboy, let's get down to the school."

Xander rolled his eyes as he polished off the rest of the pancakes from Joyce's care package. As she jumped into his arms he mused on the fact that the Slayer had the ability to swing between serious and quippy at will.

"So tell me why you call Angel 'Liam' all the time Xand..."

That afternoon Liam stirred from his restless sleep. All day he'd been plagued by self doubt about what he could have done to save Xander and how he could have better helped Buffy. Should he have told the Slayer the truth when he first found out about Kent? Would that have helped?

Pacing back and forth, he counted the seconds till sunset. All he wanted to do was find out that Buffy was okay even though Giles had told him about the curse. He'd lost one friend, he wasn't about to lose Buffy because she was distraught and not getting her head into the game, perfect happiness clause or not.

A knock on the door to his apartment shook him from his quality brood. His enhanced senses recognized Buffy on the other side of the door and he raced to open it.

"Hi!" The slayer said pleasantly.

_Oh gods_, Liam thought, _she snapped and went into denial._

'I think you should sit down," Buffy said cautiously as she led her boyfriend across the room to his favorite brooding chair, "I brought some blood for you, have you eaten today?"

"Buffy..no...I've been...what's going on?"

Buffy ruffled his hair with love in her eyes. "Oh Liam..." she mused, trying out his other name, "bring in the food!" Buffy called out over her shoulder.

The vampires pale features grew damn near luminescent as Xander walked into the room and held up a bag from the butcher shop.

"Look dead boy, bison blood! Great taste but less filling!"

Thankfully vampires don't faint, not that Xander didn't give it the old college try.

"So you to have been at school all day and you've known about Xander's secret since this morning?" the vampire growled as he practically stalked back and forth across his apartment.

"It never occurred to either of you to drop a line, a signal flare, a damn carrier pigeon?! I've been going out of my mind all day and you-you- you're laughing at me," Liam said grouchily as he saw that Xander and Buffy were wiping tears of laughter from their eyes.

The teenagers were clutching each other as they sat on Liam's bed, finally able to let out their laughter.

"That's great! Great! Laugh now! You two make me crazy with fear and guilt and now you're laughing at me! Watch it Kent or you'll have to clear the attic on your own!"

Xander immediately sobered up and had the good sense to look sorry.

"Apologies around dude, we just got caught up at school today...the teachers are really cranking up the workload now that we've been back from winter vacation for a few weeks..."

Buffy nodded glumly, "Pop quizzes in French and Civics today," suddenly her head popped up with a suspicious look, "What attic?"

After a short explanation about their project and a short run across town, Liam and Angel finished looking over the revised renovation list for the house as Buffy wandered the property, getting a feel for the property.

"Really Liam, are you okay? I'm sorry that we didn't stop by earlier..."

The vamp looked a little put out still but was just glad everything (well some things) seemed to be okay. "Honestly? I'm a little frazzled by the yoyo act all of our emotions have been doing...I'm glad Buffy is with us now, the whole 'secret pals' thing was getting kind of hard to deal with, probably wasn't going to get easier after I mentioned that I knew you could take care of yourself last night when we were coming for you."

Xander laughed, "Yeah she wasn't real pleased with me either about you and I being friendly behind her back."

The Irishman looked Xander over quickly, impressed at the boy's stance after last night. "What about you? We thought you were dead last night- that was one hell of an explosion..."

"I know, I know. It was strange though...it felt like I was being reborn or something. At the very end something weird happened too..."

"Weirder than causing a warehouse to explode in a blue and red flare of energy?" Angel commented dryly as her washed the last of the paint brushes off in the now complete kitchen.

"Har har. No, I thought I heard Father for a moment- and by Father I mean Jor-El...

Liam thought about what Xander was saying and noted it for later before changing the subject. "So Buffy said you flew today?"

Xander snapped out it before shaking his head, "Not even close. We did a controlled jumping thing, kind of like what the original golden age Superman must have done- except he could only jump 1/8th of a mile and I think I might have jumped almost 15 this morning."

Liam's eyebrows jumped at that, "you _jumped _15 miles?"

"Yeah but I think we can thank physics for that. I'm damn strong, but y'know how it is mass plus power.."

"Equals Xander jumping totally way far," Buffy called out from the parlor, to the men folk's amusement.

"Whatever the Judge did was better than a jolt cola. I've felt incredible all day, funny enough it was only after I felt like this that I remembered that this is what Clark feels like all the time. It's not like a buzz or anything, I just feel like I'm running high test, I mean, my brain was already better after Halloween, but I feel as if my synaptic activity has increased threefold since last night-"

The two men just stared at each other for a second before they both burst out laughing.

"Oh gods Kent what the hell..."

"Seriously?!"

As the laughter died down and they finished putting the renovation supplies away for the night Buffy came into the kitchen.

"Have I mentioned that it's slightly creepy to hear you two laughing together?"

"Only twice since we got here," Xander quipped as he sat at the kitchen table he and Liam had brought in last week.

Liam couldn't help himself as he wrapped an arm around Buffy from behind, Giles and Jenny's words of dire warning running through his ears all the while.

"Seriously though, you guys have a house and stuff. I'm impressed! What's next? You start a Fox sitcom about the two least likely roommates in Sunnydale history?"

Angel and Xander mulled it over before Angel broke the silence. "Nah, Fox would never go for it...maybe that WB channel though..."

"Well in any case, I like the house. You guys have been working on it for how long now?"

"About a week into December is when we cleared the nest out of here, I guess roughly six weeks at this point," Xander filled in helpfully, "originally it was to make a place to see what was going to happen to me over time, but the more we've worked on the more I think of it as a home. Certainly more of a home that the Harris house," Xander's face clouded a bit and Buffy decided to move on.

"Well I can only guess that the room full of mirrors is for you mega ego Xand? It's not like my non reflective honey here needs them."

"Nah, we knew that you'd be coming over some day, wanted to make sure we had a room ready for you." Xander deadpanned while Buffy threw some comic books from the kitchen counter at him and Liam tried that smiling thing he was getting good at.

Lilith dropped the child's empty body to the ground, the lifeblood of the toddler making her dizzy with pleasure. The whole family had been very...morally proper... which made for the equivalent of milk fed veal in terms of their blood quality.

The eldest daughter however had tried to put on a lovely front of brooding pre-goth, which at least meant that their was some decent eyeliner in the house.

Ever since she had woken up last night, her mind had been whirling with new thought, new information, as her psyche redesigned the fragile and near useless memory palace that Dru had erected in her crazy little head.

It was all tea parties and bloody phantasmagoria in the dumb bitch's head, making Lilith almost feel sorry for Spike having put up with the nonsensical twit for all of these years.

Then again, she reflected as she pulled on a lovely pair of charcoal slacks that belonged to the former Mrs. Wright, if that bleached walking caricature hadn't gotten fed up with Dru's rambling by this point there wasn't really any pity to be doled out.

Angelus, now that was someone she'd have liked to party with. Throwing various shirts and blouses on the bed atop the corpses of the Wright's, Lilith saved Dru's memories of Angelus' cock. That boy had definitely been good for a shag before he got his balls cut.

Deciding on a form fitting black business shirt with gray pinstripes, Lilith tossed the rags that had been Dru's dress aside and walked over the various pieces of the family that she had dismembered upon her first feeding.

She nicked the so pathetically rebellious daughter's smokes and walked into the kitchen checking on the gas line that she had ripped out of the stove earlier and by the time she had gotten to the front yard the candle she'd left burning in the bedroom finally ignited the gas cloud and the house started to burn quite nicely with a few fireworks to kick the show off.

Lighting up, she savored the taste of the cigarette and giggled.

Walking back into the woods that surrounded the secluded family home Lilith couldn't but reflect that two wrongs don't make a right, but four Wrights certainly made a good first meal.

Lilith sauntered through the woods, taking in the night. She was still on the outskirts of Sunnydale, having wandered into the hills off of Crawford St. Even being in the woods wasn't the same as it used to be...she could sense the Hellmouth first of all, a deathbag over the whole valley, an intense heady feeling of power that was only accentuated with the sense of electricity that fueled the mortal world. These humans had come far in some ways to her surprise. Of course it seems they had only traded magic for the foolish idea of technology.

Gods knew she had certainly done her best to disabuse the fools that had been pushing science on the world back in her day, but apparently all you did by slaughtering infants was piss off parents, who then get all butt hurt and banish your bleedin' spirit away.

Nimbly leaping to the tree tops she surveyed the town. While she couldn't access even a twelfth of her former powers yet, she at least could still see they 'ley' of the town as it were.

Hellmouth, Mayor's office, a small patch of air about seventy feet above the college campus that looked pretty weak dimensionally, and a nice assortment of flavors in terms of various sects, cults, and magic users. Oh my, there was a nice big hot spot over there- oh for crying out loud- how had Acathla gotten over there? That stupid bastard had always been a little over the top for her and now he'd gotten himself here in the new world. Shaking her head, Lilith continued to survey the town. The area where she had been let back in to the world was a bit of a hot spot too, all kinds of energy was over there, most of it unusable though. It was very pretty though; she'd always liked blue and gold, and red was pretty much her favorite color.

A soft moan of pleasure interrupted her thoughts and she realized that she was very close to some adolescents fucking their brains out in a car about twenty feet away. As she leaped down to the car to get some dessert, Lilith reflected on the fact that at least some things hadn't changed in five thousand years and that you could still count on the young to be deliciously naughty.

Janus saw the walls of reality rushing past, dizzying in the extreme. His former peers had been very happy to strip him of everything he'd ever known save his mind before dropping him into the space between for his banishment.

Incorporeally rushing through the Elsewhen, Janus started to worry about the "leniency" of his former peers. There had definitely been some hard looks directed his way before the jettisoned his sou from the judgment dimension they had created, the Wolf in particular having a particularly nasty look on it's face.

As he traveled, little snippets of realities tried to grab at his, his explorer's mind still trying to encompass the amazing variety that grew steadily darker as time went across. His mind felt a little wibbly at this point, the only thing holding his consciousness together being the sense memory of divine composure and the fact that at one point this had been as simple as walking across the street for him. As it stands, few mortals could handle unshielded transport through the express lanes of reality and his newly mortal soul was feeling the strain.

As a funny little police box nearly scattered him as it raced the other way he reflected on the humor of being in a situation where one should be praying to various deities like mad and here he was with a curse in his mouth(theoretical) for everyone that he could think of.

Janus grew a little concerned as he rocketed into a section that could be considered the "bad part of town" in terms of the the collective sum of realities. The walls of time and space began to shriek and swirl in more threatening ways as the former god hurtled through them

Had he a form, Janus would have been screaming in terror as something from the Dungeon Dimensions tried it's damnedest to get through and make a snack of him before it's tentacles were forced back by a flash of white light.

"Well, well, how the mighty have fallen." came a smarmy voice to what would have been Janus' right side.

_Oh perfect_, Janus thought, _that's just who I needed to see right now._

"Come come old friend! No smile for Q?"

_Not on your life, even if I had a mouth._

"Tsk tsk. Here I go to the trouble of slowing your descent into eternal madness and you can't even show me a little gratitude. If you could know the anguish I'm feeling at your callousness!"

_So sorry you sarcastic little twit, but as you can see, I've caught a sudden case of being damned in almost every way imaginable. _

Q just shook his head in mock pity before wagging his finger sternly. "This is what you get for throwing in with that little bastard you know. The girl was on the right track, but the man, now he was truly dumb. I could have told you that those 5th dimensioners are nothing but trouble.

_Lovely, here comes the bigotry. _

"Insults! Slander! I have the mind to just let you get back on the flight path you former so-called-friends sent you on!"

_Well why did you stop me anyways? I thought you stayed in that ridiculous universe with the spaceships most of the time._

"Well a body likes to go on vacation from time to time. Besides, your little tether to that boy you're so fond of cut through my reality when you were going Warp 1000 towards the hell regions."

Janus moved his point of view around and was blown away at the sight of a infinitesimal strand of Chaos connected to his cloud of energy.

"Indeed old boy, little surprising to myself as well. I can only assume that is what's blocking that ridiculous group of 'gods' from coming and making sure you're properly trussed up still. The static this thing puts out is extraordinary."

Both beings recoiled as the line suddenly pulsed brightly and flooded Janus' form with energy before the strand that had led back to Xander unraveled into ambient energy that Q sampled some of.

_What the hell?_

Q swished the energy in his mouth before absorbing it fully. "Tastes like a fair amount of class 2 byproduct chaos. I'm getting an morally questionable female feeling from it.

_Brunette and British?_

"Parts of it. It's also very old. Most of the strife is that she just killed some kid who was going to shoot another man to death in a few years, what a lucky little primate he is! Those 'Powers', always building little glass balance scales, then getting mad when the butterfly effect changes everything."

Janus was ignoring the annoying Q. The energy pulse had done something to him and he could feel himself being drawn towards a birth somewhere.

"Well look at that. Looks like you're off on a grand adventure! Glad I slowed you down long enough for you to get that then," Q looked inquiringly at Janus' form, an opportunistic look on it's face, " I think this makes us even for that time you created the continuum then, hmmm? Ta!" With a snap of his fingers Q vanished into the ether, relieved to be out of debt.

Janus wasn't sorry to see the annoying creature go, almost amused that the continuum thought he'd created them, but mainly he was feeling very odd as he was pulled to a dimension's Earth far away from all the realities he'd mapped out. His cloud began to send sparks off in every direction, bolts of energy slamming into the walls of reality and the former god's knowledge began to bleed off of him in a dazzling display of light as the dimension he entered molded his form to fit to standards. He vaguely sensed that his soul was changing, becoming more properly human, but he attempted to hang on to bits of his divine memory the same way that Xander had grasped at Clark's fleeing essence on Halloween. Janus had the idea that this world and time were being created almost retroactively in accordance with the surge of Chaos, but the knowledge of how slipped away from him as he was drawn into the womb of a woman in the early stages of her pregnancy. The god's last physical incarnation was converted into biological information and sorted into the genetic material of the womb, creating a design that the baby would grow into. As the divine finally settled into the mortal, a new life was cemented in place and a reality was given a character who would change the world simply by living in it.

On a bright winter day in 1899, on an earth so very like our own, a young expectant mother named Anna walked through the park with her husband, almost certain that she could feel he growing baby moving. Joy on her face she grabbed her husband's hand so he could feel their child's movement.

"He's already moving about, I wonder if this means I should look forward to an active pregnancy," she asked her husband with a mona lisa smile.

"He? So sure of a son my dear?"

"Is that disappointment I'm sensing?" Anna asked with faint surprise.

"Of course not! I'm just wondering if that means you've accepted my proposal to what the child's name should be then?"

Anna laughed delightedly. Her husband was not always a subtle man, but she loved him so, sometimes because of it. "Yes dear I have. I think Henry Jones Jr. is a wonderful name for our son."

Back in Sunnydale, in it's own relative time flow, Lilith paused as she licked her fingers clean of the young girl's blood. The boy had been nice, she had tasted the violence in him, and it had made the young girls blood that much sweeter. Like lovely songs around the may pole-

Lilith clamped down harshly, turning inward and destroyed the sing-song thought. Her takeover of this body was going well, as long as she destroyed errant Dru-isms like that last bit when they popped up.

Taking the car keys from the boy's clothes, Lilith tossed the bodies back into the woods for something to snack on. She hadn't sensed any ghouls yet, but that didn't mean that there weren't any around.

Spike hadn't let Dru drive to often, but Lilith had the basics in her mind and figured out the clutch within two minutes.

Portishead burst from the speakers of the purloined car and startled Lilith but soon brought a smile to the vampire's face as she decided that the humans had at least progressed with their music. Driving through town and enjoying the deep rhythms of the music, Lilith decided that as nice as this burg would be to dominate at some point, she needed to feed out of town for a bit, preferably on babies as she used to, and regain her power.

From the few usable memories of Drusilla's, Lilith divined that a sizable city was only a few hours from here and would certainly get her out from the radar of any do-gooders in this town. She could feel a Slayer in town and Dru's memories confirmed it. Slayers, she thought with disgust, what a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Taking all the lovely violence and death out of a demon and putting it into a bubblegum package that barely lasted past the day you cracked the seal. Beyond that, this particular Slayer was friends with the one who had released her into the world...oh the games we would play with him...

Lilith felt some of Drusilla skirting the edges of her mind at the thought of the fresh young man who's transformation had changed this world and decided to let those particular urges stay. Dru had a unique knack for thinking of fun things to do to a body, generally switching between pliers and pussy. Lilith laughed again, the blunt shape of her thoughts feeling fantastic inside. She would never have dreamed that getting back into the world through one of the Order of Aurelius would have changed her language and goals so much, but who was she to complain?

She pointed the BMW towards Los Angeles, making sure to run over a homeless man near the roadside on the way out of town. These humans, walking around like they owned the place.

Xander walked back to the Harris house slowly, his brain racing in a thousand different directions.

His day had been thoroughly long and bizarre to say the very least. He'd woken up with the strength of a demigod and had been outed as an alien to one of his best friends who was currently having possible snuggle time with another possible best friend.

Huh, a vampire as a best friend.

That still threw him, and why not? Barely 12 weeks had passed since everything had changed, but of course, in Sunnydale, things could change in one night. Xander had rationalized the fact that he wasn't friends with the Vampire, but instead, was friends with the man who had been bound to the vampire- punished for the crimes committed by the face.

Currently that man had been troubled by something in the past few days, outside of possibly dead friends and near apocalypses. Xander hadn't gotten a chance to get to the bottom of it all, but he'd noticed a tenseness to Liam when Buffy was near.

Xander was also troubled by Janus' message via shiny energy circle. Thinking of the god caused Xander to pull a permanent marker and absently draw a circle on the top of the garbage can he walked past and he silently sent a small prayer out into the ether. Mxyia was a concern in that the few times they'd spoken, Xander had been attracted to the imp, his usual instincts in crushing on women who weren't even fully human obviously coming out to play. While Xander held no burning desire to pursue the imp, he certainly hoped that her abrupt removal from his life bode ill.

Looking up at the stars over Sunnydale, Xander felt his eyes drawn to a pot in the sky that only Clark would have known why he stared there longingly.

He wondered if Krypton was there, hurtling through space, intact under the light of a stable red star.

Xander hadn't looked up anything in astronomy books because he was just too afraid to know otherwise.

Janus and Mxyia hadn't said anything one way or another and they didn't need to.

You generally don't need someone to tell you that you're totally alone.

Feeling a dark cloud starting to move in on his otherwise neutral thoughts, Xander was almost glad when he heard the sounds of trouble coming from the distance. The Hellmouth was always good for a distraction or two from the real world.

Billy had been a vampire ever since Pea Ridge- March 7th, 1862. He still wore the gray, much to the ire of the few companions he'd had over the years. Course he'd had to kill most of them sumbitches so it wasn't too much of a bother.

He'd hooked up with Zlar about five years ago, the strange gargoyle like creature having fallen literally into his lap when he was passing through Boston. Normal vampires and demons didn't really play to nicely together but Billy always was an odd duck and Zlar? Well Zlar was currently trying to get the fire hydrant to "Stop looking at Zlar funny".

Billy had given up trying to convince his strange companion that this dimensions inanimate objects had attitude problems; one generally did since Zlar was approximately 8 feet tall (damn thing never did stand up straight though, so who knows) with a complexion like a brick wall and enough strength to punch a hole through an Abrams tank.

The relationship had been pretty fun most times. Billy fed on blood, Zlar on the bones, and a good time was had by all except the meal.

For whatever reason though, the thrill had been gone as of late. Billy had cut a nice little niche out in this world and usually had a lot of fun doing so. Money hadn't been a problem as of late since Billy had taken to having Zlar rip ATM's out of walls so they could get money to pay for the afterlife's little pleasures, blood and booze and what have you(precious stones were Zlar's favorite candy and Billy figured the big guy earned all the snacks they could afford), but all in all, Bill felt that the spice had gone out of his unlife.

Until a week ago.

Billy and Zlar had been holed up for the day when a weird little guy dressed like a pimp had walked right out of the shadows of the sewer and told them that Sunnydale was just _full_ of fun if they were looking for a kick.

Billy hadn't actually visited a Hellmouth before and decided that they needed to get out of the old TX, just for variety.

Zlar was currently poking holes in the wall of Sunnydale's First National Bank with one prodigious digit while Billy was slapping a security guard around.

"C'mon now boy, don't make this worse on yourself."

"Wh-What do you want," the guard cried out as he felt his bowels release, thinking about his sister's offer of a job in Manitoba looking better and better than this hole of a town.

Billy stopped abruptly. 'Well hell! I done forgot and never asked! Let's just get to feeding..." Billy drawled as his face shifted and the security guard started to scream in earnest.

Xander eased his view over the roof of the bank, looking down on the situation below. As per usual, even with the massive brick-demon thing out in plain view, the damn street was as empty as always. He really needed to ask Giles why this town just ignored everything.

There was a vamp, tall and broad, wearing a civil war era coat over blue jeans and a Skynard shirt that went perfectly with the massive handle bar mustache the leech was rocking.

The demon was as wide as a damn Hum-Vee and looked about as smart.

But if there was one thing that Xander had learned in the past few weeks, it was the relative value of covers on books.

Seeing that the scene was kicking into overdrive with the vamp going in for the kill Xander did the only thing that immediately came to mind and jumped off of the third story roof deciding that being fray adjacent wasn't the way to experience any of life's mysteries. He dimly hoped that his new level of being wasn't going to let him down.

**Zlar bored.**

**Bill-E taking too long to get food now.**

**What that thing coming from sky?**

Xander did a forward roll into his decent, focusing everything he had into the work boots he'd gotten from Janus. Three stories wasn't a huge distance to build up momentum but the big demon still buckled nicely as Xander's feet impacted right on the rock things upturned face.

"Yo johnny reb! How about letting the rent-a-cop go?"

Billy just turned and stared, his predators mind damn near blown at the sight before him. Zlar had fallen on what constituted his ass and some blood bag that wasn't even half human from the smell of it was standing on the demon's torso.

"Well damn son, I aint never seen anyone get a drop on Zlar before...and believe me when I say that he's waded through a pack of Fyarl's without breaking a sweat." Billy reverted to hick speech in order to size up the boy in front of him and he could see that Zlar's eyes were starting to glow bright orange which always meant a good show was coming.

Fyarl? Xander made a research note and got back to the obvious situation. "Well the Hellmouth is full of surprises, but you'll never see any past our illustrious main street here," he said with a smirk and a wave of a stake.

"Is this the clever banter bit, boy? Cause I gotta be honest you may want to work on that."

"You know I've been working on it? I just haven-" Xander glib reply was cut off as a roar shook the air around them and he realized he was still standing astride the not so unconscious "Zlar".

A massive hand grabbed Xander's leg with a vicious grip before swing Xander through the air and back down into the pavement like an enraged toddler with a naughty stuffed toy.

"Oooeee! Now that looked painful," Billy commented, his demon yellow eyes glinting with pleasure

Xander couldn't even respond before Zlar started swing the teen over head into the pavement again and again, enraged because the flesh man wasn't turning into a fine paste.

After a few dozen hits, Billy stepped in to appraise the scene stepping over the bit's of broken black top Xander's impacts had thrown about.

"Alright big guy, let me get a piece of that!"

Zlar shifted his grip and held a limp Xander up by an arm, the teen stunned and concerned that the blacktop in his ears was going to be difficult to remove.

"Well, look at that. Now that you've been tenderized I'm guessing you are going to be tasty son, even if you aren't human. What do you think?"

"The CSA sucked," Xander mumbled defiantly.

"Why you!" Billy shot forward and landed a right cross to Xander's jaw that promptly pulverized every bone in the vampire's hand.

"OW! GOD DAMN SON OF A-"

Xander struck quickly, chopping with his free left arm squarely at Billy's neck and then shocked all three of the combatants by passing right through said neck.

"-bitch," Billy finished as he turned to dust instantly.

A beat passed as Zlar was so shocked at Billy's demise that he almost dropped Xander and Xander, blown away at the amount of power he possessed, nearly didn't get it together quick enough to move on to the next part of the fight.

The Clark side of him urged Xander not to let the moment pass and Xander quickly used all of his newfound power to catch the massive demon unawares with an over the shoulder throw.

The beast crashed into the already broken pavement and Xander seized the continued surprise by stomping the monster's head a few times, knowing that he had at least enough strength to stun it.

Zlar growled and swatted angrily at the annoying boy, his rock head starting to buzz with the blows the boy kept delivering.

Scrambling to it's feet, the beast roared and slammed both fists into a hammer strike towards Xander who knew what to expect in terms of strength from the demon now and crossed his own arms into a suitable block.

Xander recovered and spun into a kick to Zlar's chest that sent the creature skidding backwards down the street.

_No fatigue, and I've recovered _ _from the hits he dealt earlier...but what do I do with this guy?_

"LITTLE BOY KILL BILL-E" Zlar roared, his eyes literally radiating the depth of his fury.

Xander considered his options as Zlar grabbed the security guy's car and swung at him, narrowly missing the bank building but taking out a mail box.

He looked around to see that the security guard had gotten away, but unfortunately Xander and Zlar had been fighting long enough for the Sunnydale PD to start towards the scene. He figured they had two minutes before there were far too many people around for Xander's tastes.

Flipping backwards from another swing of the car, Xander squashed the joy at pulling off a move so effortlessly to deal with the here and now.

Bracing himself, Xander managed to catch the car when Zlar swung again.

"WHOA! ZLAR!"

Zlar's eye's widened at the little man talking.

"We are about to have lots of witnesses here! I can only assume that Stars N Bars tried to teach you subtlety?"

The half of Xander that had grown up in Sunnydale was internally shrieking that there was no reasoning with a monster, kill it. The other half, the half that Xander listened to more often now was hoping that this would work, that diplomacy and logic could occasionally work.

Zlar, despite not being highly intelligent, remembered Billy's warnings about getting too many people involved in anything. Especially the ones that drove the shrieking cars with the lights on top.

"Trouble coming for Zlar?" The gargoyle rumbled, his fury dissipating as his brain switched tracks to being used for speaking.

'Trouble for both of us fella. I'm not to keen on us getting caught, but if we keep this up we will."

_One minute_ the internal countdown said, making Xander focus on the moment.

Zlar let go of the car and then rust colored sand began to come from the monster's eyes.

_Oh nuts, _Xander thought with dismay, _He's not really crying is he?_

"Zlar hate blue sky world," the demon roared piteously, "Blue shirt man kill Zlar's friend! Zlar tired of cold world and ugly fleshy faces everywhere!"

Zlar turned and jumped into the night sky and Xander saw that improbable stone wings erupted from the creature's back, somehow allowing Zlar to fly against all the laws of mortal man's science.

Xander watched as his first real combatant since beginning his strange transformation flew into the night without a word.

Dumbfounded at the strange turn of events Xander just shook his head.

"Huh."

Xander was very happy that his clothes had somehow come through the fight mostly intact. _Looks like Jesse was right about the whole clothes force field thing for Superman...or else Janus sent me clothes that are as strong as me..._

Nimbly leaping to the roof, Xander was glad that the window in his room was unlatched as always, gods forbid Tony or Jessica actually think of security in a town like Sunnydale.

Slipping silently into his room, Xander reflected on how little he cared about this house or anything in it anymore, save for some pictures of Jesse and Willow stashed in his closet. His old clothes weren't him and didn't really fit these days, the books he actually liked were kept at school or at Willow's, almost everything at the Harris household was a joke; something that Xander was so far distanced from that he realized he just needed to leave already.

Never was any of this more clear until Xander flipped on the light and realized that he wasn't alone.

"Where the hell you been for that last two days you piece of crap," Tony Harris growled out, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a belt hanging from the other.


End file.
